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Blogs » Politics » To Know What’s Wrong With China, Look At Her Construction |
- To Know What’s Wrong With China, Look At Her Construction
- Smiling official at tragic accident site involved in luxury watch scandal
- On Economy, Verbal Intervention May Be Key
- Netizen Voices: Guess Who?
- Translation: To Know What’s Wrong With China, Look At Her Construction
- Japanese Goods Boycotter Sports a Canon
- China: Collapsed Highway In Harbin
- China: Neil Bush on Sina Weibo
- Did a Chinese Safety Official Just Get Caught Smiling at a Horrific Accident Scene?
- China’s Food Safety Crisis: How Serious Is the Problem?
- Ministry of Truth: Absconding Liaoning Official
- The Daily Twit – 8/27/12: New Laws on the Way, Web Addiction, and Comparative Education
- Australian praised for saving drowning man in Eastern China
- F*$# Pride: Why Does China Need 100 Global Brands by 2015?
- Deadly accident involving sleeper bus in northwest China raises safety concerns
- Vanity versus Value in the Chinese Consumer Market
| To Know What’s Wrong With China, Look At Her Construction Posted: 27 Aug 2012 10:30 PM PDT Popular blogger Li Chengpeng wrote recently about the recent collapse of a bridge in Harbin, after which officials claimed that they were unable to find the construction company responsible. He uses that example, among many others, to discuss the concept of truth in Chinese society. Tea Leaf Nation translated his post:
Read more by and about Li Chengpeng, via CDT. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Smiling official at tragic accident site involved in luxury watch scandal Posted: 27 Aug 2012 12:37 PM PDT
A photo picturing an official with a corrupt belly and his hands behind back smiling at the site of a deadly rear-end accident in Shaanxi that killed 36 people has gone viral online. The official was soon identified as Yang Dacai (杨达才), Director of the State Administration of Work Safety in Shanxi Province, sparking a huge wave of criticisms against him for his aloof attitude. Yesterday the local work safety administration responded to the matter, by saying that Yang did rush to the accident site all the way after receiving the news, but the snapshot by the netizen could not reflect the real situation at the site. Despite of the explanation, angry netizens have dug out more photos of the senior official, showing him wearing at least five different types of luxury watches when attending various activities and conferences. Luxury watches worn by Chinese officials have been referred to as a sign of corruption in China. According to a chief operating officer for a luxury-product website, who verified the watches in the photos with an expert in the watch industry, she believed the five types of watches respectively are 1) a Rolex (Oyster Perpetual) worth of 65,000 yuan, 2) an Omega worth of 40,000 yuan, 3) a Vacheron Constantin gold dress watch worth of 200,000 t0 400,000 yuan, 4) another Omega worth of up to 40,000 yuan, and 5) a Rado worth of 30,000 yuan. Have a quick look below.
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| On Economy, Verbal Intervention May Be Key Posted: 27 Aug 2012 07:09 PM PDT After another disappointing round of manufacturing data last week, Reuters reports that Communist Party officials must now hurry if they want to inject optimism into the economy ahead of the upcoming leadership transition:
China's leaders face a conundrum, according to BBC News, as they prepare to hand over the reigns to the next generation at at time when the economy faces its worst run in years:
For more on the global implications of China's slowdown, The Economist has rolled out a stockmarket index called "Sinodependency" which is weighted by S&P 500 companies that have exposure to China. © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Posted: 27 Aug 2012 05:51 PM PDT MrWonder (琢磨先生), a well-followed Weibo user living in Saudi Arabia, recently posted a quip about "a certain group" that was quickly turned into a meme by fans:
Via SneezeBloid. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Translation: To Know What’s Wrong With China, Look At Her Construction Posted: 27 Aug 2012 03:13 PM PDT  Microblogger Li Chengpeng To prominent blogger Li Chengpeng, deceit is everywhere in modern China. In the aftermath of the shocking collapse of a 10-month-old bridge in the northeastern city of Harbin, Li took to his account on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter (@李承鹏) to comment on the bridge's unfortunate role as a metaphor for today's China. Since its posting earlier today, Li's essay has been retweeted over 44,000 times and garnered over 8,000 comments. Tea Leaf Nation translates; the original Chinese version follows at bottom. *** Every time I walk down the street and see a new project about to break ground, I know that several billionaires are about to be made. Every time I see a project has been completed, I know that a few unknown "temporary workers" are about to become famous. In this country, the completion of an infrastructure project lays the groundwork for the beginning of an anti-corruption project. It's a place where a bunch of people drown in a mere rainstorm, or when it's reported that people died from a "thunder" on a train, or…well, you know…where the Harbin bridge that collapsed just 10 months after construction was completed left killed three drivers. At first, I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary. I only started to think this might really be interesting when they couldn't find the construction company after the accident. I always thought that finding out who was responsible for something was only difficult when female members of song-and-dance troupes became pregnant. I didn't think that this happened to bridges, too. The bridge says it's lonely. The onlookers are lonely too…to help out these lonely hearts, I found the construction company: Harbin Tofu Factory. Of course, they've already gotten to the bottom of this, it's probably just not convenient for the construction company to announce it at the moment. I'm just going to take advantage of this opportunity prior to the announcement to talk about something that happened two years ago. Remember when that company in the northeast invested 2.3 billion RMB to build the Songjiang railway line? They didn't find out until there were some problems with the bridges that a cook who had never built a bridge headed a group of a few dozen other people from the countryside who had also never built bridges, and they all marched together to nab a national-level key project. There wasn't enough cement, so they made it with broken rocks and whatever was lying around. It was a classic case of "the cheat nabs the contract, the cook does the work." I am sure that the experienced chef was standing to the side mixing the cement, wondering what temperature was right, and whether to fry or broil it, if a little bit of spice wouldn't give it that extra something…it's alright if you just pretend to look for the construction company. If you really found it, it might be too much for us to take.  A collapsed building, yet another shoddy construction project in China gone awry That's just the way things are in this country. I've noticed a lot of people are scared to cross bridges now, and wish there was a Spider-Man under every bridge waiting to protect them. No, you've come this far, so you must make the best of it in your mind. Just pretend that all those obstacles are there so you can take part in the Mango channel's "Brave Obstacle Course" [a show similar to American Gladiators]. You must use your wits and your bravery to prepare yourself ahead of time. At any rate, you'll never be bored. Some people cross from one side of the river to the other, but we cross from shore to shore, putting the pedal to the medal and racing for our lives. All told, even once you've paid the toll, you've still come out ahead. I've also noticed a bunch of people clamoring for the truth. Actually, you don't need to seek the truth, because we all know the truth. Last year, at a book fair in Hong Kong, I said that the greatest truth in this place is that we know they are lying, and they know that we know they are lying, and we also know that they actually know that we know that they are lying…so we don't care about the truth anymore, we just care about the way they put on their show of "truth," and only the complete compilation of all of these performances is enough to count as the whole truth. It was thunder for the train, or Guo Meimei's bag, the smile of the Yan'an security official when those 36 people died in the traffic accident, or when the weight of a truck caused the collapse of the bridge, it's the safe and healthy milk that Meng Niu sends out every day, and the several people who died in the Henan bridge collapse that journalists weren't allowed to report on. So you see, the "experts" have come out again. They're so busy explaining disasters that it's the only thing they do. Stupid technology wonks have also come out of the woodwork, saying that the science of mechanics proves that the only reason the bridge collapsed is that the driver stayed to one side. They should have just said, "Who told the driver to park on the right side, don't they know that's an incorrect political stance?" The audience would have laughed and cheered. The truth I like the most is: Some people don't have penises, but they always pretend to pee standing up. This is why we should relax. In truth, I don't expect leaders in Harbin to come out and apologize personally, or for a few corrupt officials to get nabbed. They nab corrupt officials every day, and bridges collapse every year, nothing new under the sun. With the passage of time, you will realize that the greatest gift this age has given us isn't the truth, but all the time and hard work you've put into imagining how they will put on a show of "truth." In this amazing process, they are responsible for lying, and the ordinary people transform these lies into allegories. That old saying really explains it best: we knew all along that the bridge was unsafe, that's why we told you to "cross the river by feeling for stones" [a metaphor for approaching a task or activity with caution]. Now that we've gotten to the bridge, I have one final story for you: On a large bridge on Zhengshang Road in Yingyang city (part of highway 310), because of traffic accidents happened almost every day, leaving people dead and injured. According to the street merchants at the end of the bridge Mr. and Mrs. Wang, , the bridge had already been in place for ten years. They said every night motorcycles, mopeds, and three-wheeled scooters would crash into each other. Those with just scrapes got off easy, while others died in these accidents. According to Ms. Hu, who had been responsible for cleaning the bridge since August 1, there were no accidents on only five of the 26 days she had worked. Every morning at 5 AM, when she was cleaning up, she would find bits and pieces of people. It always left her frightened and unsettled to see all of that blood. People looked into it, and they discovered why this happened: 1) The bridge was not lighted; 2) It was unclear what expert designed it, but the highway divider and flower boxes were not along one straight line, so it was easy for cars to crash into it; 3) Five years ago, in order to warn pedestrians and drivers, the traffic control department had installed a red and black divider with reflectors…it's just that it was installed backwards and left that way. That's right, backwards, you don't see the reflectors until you've crashed into the divider and you're black and blue. Maybe you can see it when the ambulance comes to collect you. It's true, there is a warning sign. It was just installed backwards. That's a pretty good illustration of the establishment of China's rule of law. It's also a good illustration of everything in China.
走在大街上，每看到新工程上马，就知道又有几个亿万富翁将诞生了。每到工程竣工，就知道又一批默默无闻的临时工要出名了。在这里，一个基建工程的竣工，只是说明一个反腐工程可以开始。所以在下场大雨就淹死好多人，坐趟动车就整编制被雷打焦……的地方，竣工十个月的哈尔滨大桥坍塌致死三名司机，第一时间我并没有那么动容。 我真正开始觉得此事有新意的是，事故之后找不到施工单位。过去我只以为女文工团员怀孕后很难找到施工单位，想不到现在，桥，也是这样。 桥表示自己很孤独，围观的人也很孤独……为了都不那么孤独，我找到了施工单位：哈尔滨豆腐厂。当然此事辟了谣，施工单位只是目前不方便公布。趁公布之前我顺便想到了前年也是东北这旮瘩投资23亿修松江线铁路时，有些桥墩出了问题，才发现施工单位是一个从未建过桥的厨子率领了几十个同样没修过桥的农民，昂首走上国家级重点工程第一线。混凝土不够，碎石杂物凑。就是著名的"骗子承包、厨子施工"。想像资深大厨一边灌着泥浆一边思量文火还是急火，生煎还是乱炖，放不放点孜燃……这次的施工单位假装找一找就好了，真找到，你我可能还受不了。 这就是国情。我看到很多人担心今后过桥的安全，恨不得每座桥下都守护着一个蜘蛛侠。不，经过了这么多，你得达观，得想像每条路、每座桥、每一个隧洞都藏有那么多机关，就是在参加芒果台的"智勇大冲关"。你斗智斗勇，提前预判，总之过得很充实，别人是从河这边到河那边，我们是从此岸到彼岸，一脚油门，就是一生。算一算，扣除过桥费，还是赚了。 我还看到很多人在追问真相。其实不必追问真相，因为彼此都知道真相。去年我在香港书展时说过，这里最大的真相是，我们知道他们在撒谎，他们也知道我们知道他们在撒谎，我们也知道他们其实知道我们知道他们在撒谎……所以我现在不关心真相，我关心怎么表演真相，所有真相的表演版本合集起来才够得上完整真相：是动车的雷，是郭美美的包，和延安高速路死亡36人时安监局长的笑，是卡车司机超载导致高架桥坍塌，是蒙牛天天送出的健康奶，和河南高架桥死伤若干不准报道…… 你看，专家又跳出来了，他们现在好忙，唯一的工作就是解释灾难。你看，二逼技术控也出来了，指出司机单边停靠才导致坍塌的各种力学原理。他们该说，谁让司机停在右边那根道呢，政治立场不对。场面欢乐，蔚为大观。 我最喜欢看的真相是：有人木有鸡鸡，却总表演站着撒尿。 所以要放轻松，放轻松，其实我对哈尔滨领导出面道歉并不盼望，对抓走几个贪官也不奢望，贪官天天抓，各种桥段和桥断年年有，一切从未改观。多年以后，就会明白这个时代留给我们最大的财富不是真相，而是你一直勤于动脑，想像他们下一次会怎样表演真相。这个卓越的过程中，他们负责说谎言，老百姓把谎言提炼成寓言，那句说得很清楚了：早知道桥上不安全，才让你们摸石头过河的。说到桥，就有最后一个故事： 荥阳郑上路南关大桥（属310国道），车流多，几乎天天出事，车毁人伤不断。据桥头摆杂货摊的汪大爷夫妇介绍，该桥建成已经有十余年，一到天黑常有摩托车、电动车和机动三轮车撞上，轻者皮外擦伤，重者车毁人亡。另据在桥上打扫卫生的胡师傅说，她8月1日才到这里打扫卫生，干了26天只有5天夜里没出车祸。每天早上5点来扫地时，地上经常散落着碎片，看到地上成片的血迹，她都吓得惊恐不安。 人们就去调查，发现了原因：一、桥面上没有路灯；二、不知哪个专家设计的，水泥隔离墩和花坛不在一条直线，顺行的车辆自然容易撞到隔离墩。三、为提醒行人车辆，五年前交管部门也在水泥墩上安装了最能起到有效警示作用的红白间隔反光桶……只是，只是多年来它一直被安反了。是的，安反了，你撞到水泥墩之前时看不到反光标志，等遍体鳞伤，兴许可以在救护车蓦然发现那一枚警示用的反光。 警示标志确实有，只是装反了。这差不多是中国法制建设的一个图片说明。 也是中国所有事的图片说明。
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| Japanese Goods Boycotter Sports a Canon Posted: 27 Aug 2012 09:52 AM PDT
At least so thought one apparent protestor (or so one might think at first glance – more on this later) sporting a vivid 'Boycott Japanese Goods' t-shirt complete with a crossed-out sun from the Japanese flag. It makes for a rather interesting ensemble though when the t-shirt is paired with a Canon camera strap attached to what we can only presume is a large Canon SLR camera. The image is making the rounds on Chinese social media networks, with most netizens chiming in to let the Canon-toting protestor know in no uncertain terms their estimate of his IQ: @赵世龙1967二世, who re-posted the picture to his account, tweets, "It's really better to boycott idiotic Chinese countrymen than to boycott Japanese goods. Most often it's these idiots who drag down our country rather than the Japanese. They are easily and repeatedly used by others and don't realize it." [chinese] @钟木养生 summons a proverb for the occasion: "Don't be afraid of wolf-like opponents, be afraid of pig-like teammates." [1] Can't Live Without 'Em Many netizens used the occasion to express their skepticism of the entire boycott. The common themes, echoed in our previous coverage of an open letter from a Japanese car owner, range from the futility of boycotting the goods of an entire country to the argument that there are far better targets for public outrage in modern China and that boycotts really hurt Chinese the most. @無聊的柸具 tweets, "Japanese brands, technology and patents are everywhere. Can you really boycott Japanese goods? What a joke." [2] @蓝色忧郁于鹏, who obviously knows his cameras, gets a bit more technical: "Honestly, for a SLR camera if you don't buy Canon, Nikon or Sony then I really don't know what you could buy. Leica and Hasselbad are too expensive and don't have all the lenses. Linhof is just for large format photography. And China doesn't produce any! Conundrum!!" [3] @這是一個謎一個無法解開的謎 expresses his frustration that his countrymen can't get as riled up over more important issues closer to home. He writes: "The rich and powerful do as they will, but you don't get mad; the education system is a pressure cooker, but you say nothing; the healthcare system is a pain, but you're not angry; of rural villages' troubles, you don't see; of the unemployed's suffering, you don't hear; of authoritarianism's evil, you don't ask. But when it comes to certain matters that common folks can't change and make no real contribution to developing your homeland, and pose no danger to yourself, then you slap the table and get passionate and charge out to declare that there's no negotiating when it comes to matters of territory." [4] @黄佬斜 points to the mutually assured destruction that often results from boycotts in the age of globalization. "What's the point to boycotting? The Japanese have opened so many factories in China; if you boycott them then what will the Chinese factory workers eat? For those who enjoy wasting their spare time shouting about boycotting the Japanese, could you use your brain and think about who it is that actually suffers? If the Japanese-invested factories shut down, how many [Chinese] people will lose their jobs?" [5] Undercover Cop? In an interesting twist, @黄俊杰 reports that some observant netizens have noticed that "the person in the picture is plainclothes police: there's a bullet-proof vest inside the t-shirt (you have to look closely). And he's wearing an ear-piece. He was taking picture as evidence at the time! This is no ordinary imbecile." [6] Under cover or not, the whole incident has inspired @湖作妃围 to hit on a potentially catchy new slogan for Canon (if only for the China market): "Canon, recording the heartwarming moments of Japanese goods boycotts." [7] Footnotes (? returns to text)
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| China: Collapsed Highway In Harbin Posted: 27 Aug 2012 07:16 AM PDT On August 24, 2012, a highway suddenly collapsed and killed three people in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. Acitizen journalist video backed up and translated by Beijing Cream at Youtube shows what the disaster scene looked like.
Written by Oiwan Lam · comments (0) |
| China: Neil Bush on Sina Weibo Posted: 27 Aug 2012 06:58 AM PDT Former U.S president's brother Neil Bush has a Sina Weibo account with more than 120 thousand followers. His recent joke about joining the Chinese Communist Party has caught some attention in Chinese social media. (via Beijing Cream)  I'm thinking of joining the CCP. What do you think of my accessories? - Neil Bush from Sina Weibo Written by Oiwan Lam · comments (0) |
| Did a Chinese Safety Official Just Get Caught Smiling at a Horrific Accident Scene? Posted: 27 Aug 2012 08:51 AM PDT  Shaanxi Safety Supervision Bureau chief Yang Dacai, suddenly famous. Via Jessica Levine The government official looked at the horrific accident, and he laughed. That, at least, is the story in current circulation on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, less than one day after a horrific traffic accident claimed the lives of 36 riders onboard a bus in Shaanxi province after the bus rammed into the back of a tanker carrying methanol. This accident occurred just hours after another traffic accident in Sichuan province left 11 people dead. Shortly after the Shaanxi accident, Weibo user @作家天佑 (literally, "author god bless") tweeted an image showing an apparently well-fed middle-aged man standing behind a police cordon by a truck's charred remains, smiling as a police officer appeared to explain something to him. Netizens quickly conducted a "human flesh search," a crowd-sourced method of discovering a person's identity, and found that the smiling (or was it laughing?) man was likely Yang Dacai (杨达才), chief of Shaanxi's Safety Supervision Bureau. The results have been reposted over 8,600 times according to Hong Kong University's Weiboscope, which tracks frequently retweeted images among prominent users.  Yang and his diverse wrist bling. Via Weibo If anyone besides the families involved should be devastated by 36 passengers burning to death in Shaanxi, it should be Yang Dacai. This may explain China's netizens expressing their outrage at Yang's expression in a manner typical to the online community. Netizens have circulated a photograph showing Yang in various situations wearing a variety of expensive watches, one allegedly costing between 200,000 and 400,000 RMB (about US$30,000 – US$60,000). It goes without saying that such time pieces are more than an honest government official in China can plausibly afford. One creative netizen turned Yang into a cartoon character saying "Cheese" for an invisible camera. Chinese Internet users have also turned to humorous puns. Yang's glittering array of watches has earned him various nicknames containing "biao," the Chinese phoneme for "watch." In particular, Yang has been called "人大戴表," which sounds like the term given to representatives to China's National People's Congress, but actually means something closer to "large men wear watches." Many netizens found the affair anything but funny, unleashing a fusillade of insults and curses mostly unprintable here. Others chose to light a digital candle by tweeting a candle emoticon on behalf of victims. Some, like @然新奉, demanded to know, "Is there no lower bound to the morals of Chinese officials?" In fairness to Yang, it is hard to know just what, if anything, his en situ expression truly signifies. It's unlikely that he was laughing at the accident itself, and a nervous smile in difficult situations is a rather typical Chinese reaction. A simple smile or laugh is unlikely to say much about Yang's true feelings toward the deceased, and says nothing about his personal responsibility for the tragedy. Yang is the product of a perfect Web 2.0 storm in China, in which breaking news, "human flesh search," memes, and crowd-sourcing combined to whip up a quick maelstrom of netizen ire. Yet Yang surely deserves some blame. His choices of timepiece are redolent of corruption, and at the very least suggest a lack of self-awareness in a digital age. Yang's newfound notoriety is yet another needed reminder to Chinese officialdom that all of China–indeed, all of the world–is potentially watching their every move. Just months ago, a meeting of China's top leadership turned into an embarrassment when netizens circulated photographs of participants wearing Hermes belts and US$2,000 suits. Whatever his ultimate fate, or ultimate culpability, Yang has now learned a hard and valuable lesson. |
| China’s Food Safety Crisis: How Serious Is the Problem? Posted: 27 Aug 2012 07:52 AM PDT  Last month in the 2012 FIVB World Grand Prix Finals, China's women's volleyball team fell to countries that did not even qualify for the 2008 Olympics, where China won Bronze. The coach blamed his team's abysmal performance on their veggie diet, saying that the athletes had not had any meat for three weeks. The players were certainly not vegetarians: they abstained from meat lest contamination of chemicals such as clenbuterol interfere with their urine tests. The excuse was not as lousy as it initially sounded: early this year, China's State General Administration of Sports issued a document forbidding its athletes from consuming meat outside of official training facilities. The sports incidence epitomizes the rapidly rising concerns about food safety in China. Twenty years ago, with an exception of the few expats living in China, few Chinese would consider food safety a problem. Today, almost everybody I spoke with in China – people I knew well and those I did not – expressed their concern about adulterated food. My speculation that food safety problems in China has worsened is substantiated by the website "Throw out of window" created by Mr. Wu Heng, a postgraduate of Fudan University, to track China's food safety incidents from 2004 to 2011. In the spring of 2012, a survey carried out in sixteen major Chinese cities asked urban residents to list "the most worrisome safety concerns." Food safety topped the list (81.8%), followed by public security (49%), medical care safety (36.4%), transportation safety (34.3%), and environmental safety (20.1%). Due to government incentives to cover up or downplay problems associated with social-political stability, it is difficult to gauge the full extent of food safety problems in China. An Asian Development Bank report released in 2007 (prior to the tainted baby formula scandal) estimated that 300 million Chinese might be affected by foodborne disease annually. Food borne disease can result from consumption of food contaminated by toxins, pathogenic bacteria, viruses, or parasites. While it is relatively easy to link a health problem (e.g., acute diarrhea) to infections resulting from the consumption of contaminated food or water, it is unlikely for chronic health conditions (e.g., cancer) caused by food tainted with toxic chemicals to be included in annual statistics, even though illegal food additives or noxious substances in food are becoming a major health hazard in China. A 2011 study published in the Chinese Journal of Food Hygiene suggests that more than ninety four million people become ill annually from bacterial foodborne diseases alone, which led to approximately 3.4 million hospitalizations and more than 8,500 deaths. By way of comparison, the CDC estimates that foodborne bacteria, viruses, and microbes combined cause forty eight million Americans to fall ill, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths a year. What is to blame for China's food safety crisis? In an opinion piece published in International Herald Tribune on August 18-19, I argued that the crisis highlighted China's failure to establish a code of business ethics as its market economy expands faster than government regulators can keep pace. In the absence of effective regulations and moral constraints, private profit too often trumps public good. Ironically, what is happening in China is exactly what Karl Marx described 150 years ago. He said that with adequate profit "there is not a crime at which [capital] will [not] scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged." In a country where serving God is still suppressed, and "serving the people" is no longer in vogue, serving money seems to be the main attractive option. In an October 2011 nationwide online survey of nearly twenty three thousand adults, more than half of the respondents did not think complying with ethical standards was a necessary condition for success in Chinese society (again, by way of comparison, only twenty four percent of financial executives in the US say illegal or unethical conduct may be necessary for success). As a Tsinghua University professor said, since counterfeiters and adulterers are also victims of other unsafe food, "this is a society where everybody intoxicates everybody." Mr. Wu Heng echoed by warning that Chinese are "exchanging feces to eat." A neo-Hobbesian world of everyone against everyone is probably an overstatement. However, a functioning society needs basic moral codes in order to restrain dangerous behaviors. In a make-believe world where that baseline morality is suffering a great leap backward, a social breakdown may not be a far-fetched scenario. |
| Ministry of Truth: Absconding Liaoning Official Posted: 27 Aug 2012 08:11 AM PDT The following example of censorship instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, has been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as "Directives from the Ministry of Truth." CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.
According to Radio France Internationale [zh], Wang Guoqiang is rumored to have fled the country with a large sum of money to evade a corruption investigation. He is thought to have siphoned funds from heating bills. Since Kaite Group bought the local thermoelectric plant, the city has gone without heat for two winters, while still charging residents for "maintenance." © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| The Daily Twit – 8/27/12: New Laws on the Way, Web Addiction, and Comparative Education Posted: 27 Aug 2012 04:25 AM PDT Kind of a lazy Monday here in China news land. We do have a new legislative session to look forward to later this year, so some movement on that front. Other than that, a whole lot of ad hoc bits and pieces: Xinhua: Law amendment to prevent malicious prosecution — I look forward to seeing this pass and actually used, but I won't hold my breath. Enforcement will require local courts to second-guess local prosecutors. We'll see. Xinhua: Draft mental health law addresses privacy, rights of mentally ill people — This is sorely needed, and I think this new law, although not perfect, may actually make a difference. China IPR: A Quick Read of the AML IPR Enforcement Guidelines (Fifth Draft) — Not for everyone, but if you follow IP licensing, this one's for you. China Daily: Web addiction instructors face scrutiny — I'd rather see this whole infrastructure be scrapped, but tougher regulation is a good first step. And some non-law stories: New York Times: Starving the Future — A few days old, but this Charles Blow column on US vs. China education is worth a read, even though I think it is more instructive in what it gets wrong than anything else. Global Times: Pay bumps can bring professors back — As a law professor, I'm biased on this issue, but yeah, pay is appallingly low for profs here. And some of us don't get any extra benefits either! Bloomberg: Foreigners benefit as Chinese eschew domestic auto brands — In many sectors, cheaper local alternatives dominate even when prestige is a factor. For autos, it's a different story. Sinostand: Assigning Blame for a Hard Landing — The domestic political/PR angle of the economic downturn. This is an excellent read on a thoughtful topic that I haven't seen other folks talk about. Gordon Chang: Chinese Manufacturing Is Crashing — Chang, the author of the late 90s book "The Coming Collapse of China," has been waiting a very long time for bad economic numbers. Somehow I still don't think this is all going to end the way he thinks it will. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Australian praised for saving drowning man in Eastern China Posted: 26 Aug 2012 07:12 PM PDT
An Australian man has received praises from Chinese public for saving a drowning victim in Yantai city, Shangdong province. At around 11:20 a.m. on August 26, a young man was drowning himself when swimming in the sea at Jinshatan beach, a famous seaside tourist resort in Yantai. An Australian, who was enjoying his own time some hundred meters away, quickly jumped into the sea and swam to the drowning man on spotting that. After pulling the victim back to the beach, the Australian applied the first aid by giving him the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which finally helped the man regain his consciousness. Amazingly, the Australian man's pet dog had been accompanying him during the whole course of rescuing work, including pulling the victim from the sea together. The vicitm later was rushed to a hospital by an arrived ambulance and has no danger now. The kind rescuer, who only gave his name as Jason, was later learned to be a director from a foreign-funded company in Yantai city.
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| F*$# Pride: Why Does China Need 100 Global Brands by 2015? Posted: 27 Aug 2012 02:02 AM PDT
If your reaction to that blurb is "That's hardly news. I see that sort of thing in the State press every day in China," you would be 100% correct. China's love affair with statistics is legendary, which I always assumed was a legacy of Soviet-style economic planning. You know, "In today's news, the patriots at the Nanjing #5 Dildo Factory came in at 11% above the annual quota," or "China set to surpass Brazilians in number of boob jobs by 2014." Classic. But of course China is not the only one obsessed about keeping score. The recent Olympic games certainly taught us that lesson. The ridiculous "medal count" discussions, particularly ones that pitted the U.S. against China, were amusing. I felt like any minute, Dr. Strangelove would wheel himself out on stage and explain to us how a radical new breeding program sited at the bottom of a mine shaft could produce super-athletes within a generation. "Mein Führer, use of the genetic manipulation techniques we all admired in Jurassic Park could create not only the fastest sprinters in the world, but competitors that would literally be able to eat the competition." Admittedly, though, when sports are involved, most folks go a little crazy with the competitive spirit. It's not just the Olympics, though. The American fixation with which economy is "#1″ and when (or if, according to some pessimists) China will overtake the U.S. in terms of GDP, is just as stupid as the fascination with gold medals. It's like listening to a conversation between preschoolers about how many gold stars each received from the teacher for not dropping an unscheduled load in their pants that day. Keep in mind that these are our politicians and most respected members of the press. Call me crazy, but one would think that the only score that should matter to a government is whether its own people are doing OK. You know, things like unemployment, poverty, inflation, income levels (not misleading per capita figures), infant mortality, social insurance availability — you get the idea. The U.S. hasn't cared about most of those for about 30 years, and while China's leaders talk a good game, the results here are often less than satisfactory. The keeping score mentality reminds me of the old joke about the two guys and the attacking bear. It doesn't matter if you can outrun the bear as long as you can outrun the other guy. As long as the U.S. is #1, and "beating" China, then we won't worry about poverty, climate change and health care. Being #1 is an end to itself. Why does China think that having 100 global brands by 2015 is a reasonable goal? I have no idea. While there may be some sort of connection between overall economic activity and the number of global brands, the whole thing is tenuous, and the number itself is obviously arbitrary. I suspect this has something to do with those global ranking surveys. Every year these lists come out, and the media grabs ahold of them to see what nationalities are represented. Usually we only see Chinese financial institutions on the list, and this is seen as a failure of China's commercial sector, a loss of face that requires remediation. Seems to me that China will have less than 100 global brands by 2015 and yet still have a huge economy. It is what it is. Maybe 50 years from now, China will have 100 of the top global brands, or perhaps India. Who really cares? There are much better ways of assessing how a country is doing with its development strategy, and not having enough famous brands should not be seen as a national embarrassment. Indeed, economic or foreign policy based on saving face is ridiculous. "Shit, none of our slutty celebrities made TMZ's "Hottest Asses of the Year" this year? Wahhhhhh!!! We need a new recruitment drive!" Again, we're back to the room full of toddlers. Or maybe it's a group of 15-year-old boys comparing the size of their equipment. My advice: we shouldn't sweat the irrelevant numbers, and we should let these perceived slights to our national egos be like water off a duck's ass. We'd be better off for it. In the immortal words of Marcellus Wallace: "[Y]ou may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps." © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Deadly accident involving sleeper bus in northwest China raises safety concerns Posted: 26 Aug 2012 05:35 PM PDT
Thirty-six people were killed in a rear-end accident involving a dohble-decker sleeper bus and a tanker with methanol on Sunday morning in northwest China's Shaanxi province, reviving public concerns over the safety of overnight or sleeper buses. The deadly collision occurred at around 2:40 a.m. on August 26, near Shaanxi's Yan'an city on the Baotou-Maoming Highway, when the double-decker sleeper bus carrying 39 people rammed into the back of the tanker filled with a highly flammable liquid methanol. The accidently quickly resulted in a fire that engulfed both vehicles and killed 36 on the bus. The three other passengers survived the accident by escaping from a window, but two of them were seriously burned too. The tanker's two drivers, who are taken into police custody now, luckily were unharmed in the accident. It was said, China is the only country that designs and uses the double-decker overnight bus, though its safety has been questioned all the time. In the past 17 months, there had been at least six fatal traffic accidents involving the double-decker sleeper bus, which had claimed the lives of more than 140 people. Besides, most of the accidents happened in the early morning when the passengers were asleep, and all the drivers were suspected of driving under the influence of fatigue. On March 1 this year, the relevant authorties started banning the productin and sale of such sleeper buses for safety concerns, and stopped the registration of businesses with sleeper buses involved as well. However reportedly, over 30,000 sleeper buses are currently still in use to transport passengers on more than 5,000 routes. And according to the scappage standard for the sleeper buses, the operation of the buses would not disappear in next 5 years. |
| Vanity versus Value in the Chinese Consumer Market Posted: 26 Aug 2012 11:43 PM PDT I work in beverage sales in China, and I love my job. I go around to bars and cafes around the city and discuss wines and ciders with managements. One client the other day unexpectedly asked, "Which of your [beverages] is the fanciest-looking?" I pointed to a tall bottle hand-wrapped in red tissue paper. It can comfortably fill 2-3 cups, and normally sells at 50 RMB (~$7) per bottle. "I think we'll up that to 70 RMB," she thought aloud. It sounded nuts. An average noodle bowl in Beijing costs about 18 RMB. I won't buy a drink that's more than 50 RMB, on principle. Most consumers agree; at a bar, the cheapest beer sells the fastest, regardless of quality (my advice: don't go for the cheapest beer, especially in China. There is probably a reason it is that cheap, like they didn't hire anyone to clean the draft machine. You will feel much more pleasant if you spend the extra $1 on a slightly nicer drink). So what was she thinking upping the price to a whopping 70 RMB? "Chinese customers," she said, "often come here and don't know what beer to get. They just get the most expensive thing on the menu, because they think it's better." The Chinese consumer of beverages may not have the most refined palate in the world, and it makes sense given that China opened the festivities to things other than baijiu and rice wine only forty years ago. You can't expect Chinese consumers to have the same complex culture of beer drinking as in Belgium, or wine culture of Spain. But why do they tend to go with the most expensive thing regardless? Why not ask which beverage is the best — what qualities they have? The answer is [again and again] face. If a group of Chinese friends go to the bar together and one guy wants to treat everyone, he's going right for the most expensive item. When I used to work at a high-end restaurant in Nanjing, we were trained to only bring the wine menu over when everyone at the table was seated, and to hand it to the most important-looking man. He would scrutinize the list, not ask many questions, and then inevitably point to a red wine. He would not necessarily order the most expensive one every time, but the point is, we were trained to only take drink orders when everyone at the table was watching. The bar manager with whom I met the other day said that this was true with other things they sold. Being a niche outdoor-themed bar, they sell recreational equipment as well. She said that sometimes Chinese customers come in, point to items, and simply say, "How much?" This is the most common question. When she tells them a price (not a small price, mind you!), some may say, "Mine cost [x amount more]" or "I saw it for [x amount more elsewhere]," as if demanding to know what is wrong with their products. Unlike other recreation stores, their goal is not pure profit so much as fostering a community of common interest. As such, the manager also asked if I could come in and give a talk on beverage qualities, open for anyone to attend. I like to think that these sorts of events can help increase an appreciation for quality in goods rather than just appearances, but it will take many such events over a long period of time to facilitate that change. In the meantime, we may continue to see people sitting in crippling traffic for the sake of owning a car, Chinese college students walk around campus with expensive hiking backpacks, and good-quality, moderately-priced drinks go unnoticed. For more thoughts on consumerism and China, see last week's post: Who's more materialistic, the US or China? |
What's the best camera for capturing images of the recent boycott of Japanese goods in parts of China? Why, a Canon SLR camera, of course. 
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