Posted: 25 Oct 2012 03:35 AM PDT

Most of the big stories today could be described as "news that looks suspiciously like things we've seen before." But that's quite all right. Means less work for me explaining what it all means. Pretty soon I won't even have to bother with commentary of any kind, and the entire production of this blog will be a series of naked hyperlinks. Sounds like a plan.

But until that day comes:

Telegraph: Chinese ships enter disputed Senkaku waters — The two sides are talking, but the hijinks and jockeying for position on the ground (er, water) continue.

Xinhua: China confirms surveillance ships patrolling near Diaoyu Islands — Yes, it's official, straight from the ~~horse's~~ Foreign Ministry's mouth.

Diplomat: Why Calling China an "Adversary" Doesn't Matter — Still a lot of stories out there dissecting the U.S. presidential debate on foreign policy, which took place on Monday. Obama slipped in the word "adversary" when discussing China, but it probably isn't a big deal. I agree.

China Daily Show: Desperate Romney completely changes mind on China — This is about the only way I can stomach more writing on the U.S. presidential debate: parody. Enjoy.

Seeking Alpha: U.S. And China Share Problem Of Rising Income Inequality — You'd think that the U.S. and China would have better bilateral relations, what with all the things they share. Here's one of them, which appears to be getting worse.

Reuters: Huawei partner offered U.S. tech to Iran — Huawei must have been thinking recently that things couldn't get any worse for them in the U.S. Guess again.

East Asia Forum: China's rebalancing act: between exports and domestic demand — Here's another look at the macro picture and whether China is really restructuring its economy in the right direction. This is slightly longer and more detailed than the last couple articles I've linked to on this topic.

Guardian: China to approve new nuclear plants, ending moratorium after Fukushima — China is moving forward with an aggressive, and impressive, energy program. Recall that the PRC released an energy plan white paper yesterday. One wonders why the U.S. doesn't have one of those. Oh yeah, politics.

Forbes: When Will China Get Another Baidu? Could Be A While! — Seems like the golden age of China Net companies may be over, at least in terms of new entrants. Problems with exit strategies abound, making life difficult for investors.

Diplomat: China's 'Image' Problem in Africa — Thus far, China has been wedded to its version of the "Prime Directive" in Africa, meaning non-interference in local politics. As its footprint grows, will that policy need to be scrapped?

H&M Accused of Paying “Slave Wages”

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 01:06 AM PDT

Here's a familiar story with a twist:

Swedish fashion giant H&M denied on Wednesday accusations that the company encouraged "slave-like" wages at a subcontractor's factory[.]

"It's completely incorrect," H&M Chief Executive Karl-Johan Persson told Swedish daily Expressen.

A documentary to be broadcast on Swedish television channel TV4 on Wednesday alleges that . . . factory workers producing goods for the company are paid so little they have to borrow money just to buy food.

The program said that workers were paid a monthly salary of 500 kronor ($75) for a 70-hour work week, according to news agency TT.

Seen this kind of story before? Any guesses about the location of the factory? Guangdong, Jiangsu, maybe out West somewhere?

To be honest, I may have excised a couple words out of that above quote, just to mislead you. As it turns out, the factory in question is actually in Cambodia.

Sign of the times. Textile work has been leaving China for some time now and has accelerated with economic downcycles. China is moving up the value chain, and hopefully at some point, these kinds of labor dispute stories won't trigger an automatic "This must be about China" reaction.

Beijing AIC Fines Nike for Having Double Standard

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

Let me say at the outset here that I don't think I have all the facts. I've read a few news reports and still feel like I'm missing something. I'll explain why in a moment. First, the facts:

Nike, the world's largest athletic footwear company, has been fined 4.87 million yuan ($779，416) for selling sneakers in China at a higher price and of a lower standard[.]

Nike set the price for one of its basketball sneakers, which it advertised with double air cushions inside, at 1,299 yuan in China, more than 500 yuan higher than the same one in other countries. It was later discovered the company misled customers with an advertisement as the footwear only contained one air cushion.

The Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce said Nike applied double standards between Chinese consumers and other places.

"The administration will not tolerate such a behavior," said Liu Jianmin, deputy head of Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce.

There are two issues here: differential pricing and product quality/features. The second one is easier to deal with, and it involves a clear case of Nike violating China's Advertising Law. Nike offered for sale a product with certain features, and yet the shoes it actually sold had different features. That's not kosher. The AIC has a supervisory role over advertising and fraud, so it makes sense for them to be involved here.

The Chinese Intertubes are clogged with charges of "双标准!!!" (double standard). Fair?

On the product side, Chinese consumers were getting a shoe with one air cushion, while some foreign customers were getting two. OK, consumers certainly have a right to complain about that, assuming that these air cushions are at all functional and mean anything. (I doubt it.)

Putting the advertising issue aside, though, is it illegal to have a product overseas that has one air cushion and another one here that sells with only one? Absurd. Of course that's not a legal issue. That happens every day with a wide range of products. Companies are of course free to sell products in different markets that are not identical.

What about the pricing issue? Apparently Nike was selling the shoes here at a higher price than in some foreign markets. Problem? The answer here is the same, but I offer it with a bit more hesitation.

China does maintain price controls, and there are several provisions under Chinese law that place restrictions on companies with respect to pricing. Moreover, we know that there are limitations on pricing when it comes to international trade (i.e., anti-dumping).

All that being said, we can still ask the basic question: is it legal for Nike to sell a shoe in China for a higher price than they sell it in another market? Answer: of course it is. If the answer was no, this would mean that China was imposing the requirement that all companies that sell products in other markets, as well as in China, must use the lowest market price (or lower!) when selling in the PRC. That's just crazy talk.

And yet we've got an official with AIC talking about double standards. What's he talking about, and what exactly was the violation here? If it was simply a problem with the adverts/fraud, it seems to me like all this rhetoric would be different, and the AIC official would not have mentioned double standards and then said that "The administration will not tolerate such a [sic] behavior."

So I'm left somewhat confused, as usual. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Top 10 Search List (October 25, 2012)

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 11:16 PM PDT

1) 颜艳红 (Yán Yànhóng, Yan Yanhong) – Yan is a teacher at a private kindergarten in Zhejiang Province. A video of her carrying a boy by his ears were shot and posted online at by Yan's colleague at her request. In the video, the boy looked to be in pain, while Yan was laughing. Yan also took photos after she forced kids pose as if they are kissing and sealed the mouth of boys with duct tape. She found these photos and video to be so "funny" that she showed them to a kid's parent during an IM chat. Some parents reported this to the local education bureau and the teacher was fired. Chinese story here.

2) 林威成 (Lín Wēichéng, Lin Weicheng) – 36-year-old Lin is the owner of several nightclubs and KTVs in Taiwan and was accused in a tabloid magazine of drugging and raping many teenage girls and forced them to become prostitutes or strippers by threatening them with video footage of the rape. Local prosecutors said it is difficult to indict him as no one has actually pressed charges. Lin used to be singer. Chinese story here.

3) 扬州火灾 (Yángzhōu huózāi, Yangzhou fire) – A fire broke out around 1am last night in a department store in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. The fire was put out by 6am this morning and the cause of the fire is still under investigation. Chinese story here.

4) 潘基文 (Pān Jīwén, Ban Ki-moon) – The K-Pop singer Psy has officially taken "Gangnam Style" to the United Nations. He met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday (Oct. 23), and, before you ask, yes they did dance some of Psy's now-iconic "Gangnam Style" moves. "Until two days ago someone told me I am the most famous Korean in the world," Ban told Psy during their meet. "Now I have to relinquish. I have no regrets." English story here.

5) 谢霆锋皮肤癌(Xiè Tíngfēng pífūaí, Xie Tingfeng melanoma) – In an recently-aired TV interview shot a month ago, singer and actor Xie Tingfeng (Nicholas Tse) said that he was diagnosed with melanoma and this news got many of his fans worried. Two days ago, his agent said via her weibo that the latest medical report showed the growth is benign and there is no need for worry. Chinese story here.

6) 大小S父亲 (dàxiǎo S fùqīn, father of SOS) – SOS is an idol group in Taiwan. The two members are sisters (Xu Xiyuan and Xu Xidi, Barbie and Dee Hsu) who have been famous as singers, actors and TV program hosts. Their father died of cancer Tuesday. Chinese story here.

7) 陈俊生(Chén Jùnshēng, Chen Junsheng) – Chen is a former actor and currently runs a tutoring center. His 37-year-old girlfriend recently killed herself and left behind a note accusing him of cheating on her. Chinese story here.

8）四川虐猴男 (Sìchuān nǜehóunán, Sichuan monkey skinner) – A photo posted online by a tourist showed a man holding a freshly skinned monkey in his hand. The photo triggered many angry comments. As the monkey is a kind of nation-level protected animals, local police started tracking down the man with the help of the photo. According to the tourist, she happened to see the man when he was asking people to take photos and showing off his "handwork". Chinese story here.

9) 刘欢退出好声音 (Liú Huān tuìchūhǎoshēngyīn, Liu Huan left the Voice of China) – Liu Huan, one of the three judges for the hit singing show, the Voice of China, is not coming back for the next season. Liu told reporters that the recording of one episode takes up to 12 hours and is too much for his health. Chinese story here.

10) 台湾变态歌手 (táiwān biàntài gēshǒu, Taiwan perverted singer) – This one is about the same former singer listed in No.2.

Whither Handwriting in China?

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 10:35 PM PDT

Whether you're interested in Chinese or the effects of technology, this is a fun topic:

Students from South-Central University for Nationalities in Wuhan, Hubei Province, recently conducted a survey of college students' abilities to write Chinese characters by hand. Of the 143 college students who participated, only 12 could write all 10 characters in the test correctly.

I should point out that the test involved characters that are commonly written incorrectly, so the results may make the problem appear somewhat larger than it really is.

Of course, there is a problem, and not a new one; moreover, it may be getting worse. One of my Chinese teachers (this was in 2004 when I went back to grad school) used to complain about this, telling our class stories of her trips back home to China and the deplorable situation of handwriting. It made her sad.

I won't bother giving my opinion on the whole debate over whether, and to what extent, learning Chinese is more difficult without being able to hand write characters. I'm no language scholar. From my experience, though, people who can hand write say it's absolutely necessary to learn that skill well; people that don't know how and still have acceptable language skills have a different opinion. No big surprise. (I have no doubt that I will receive some very opinionated comments on this issue.)

I'm much more interested in the technology angle. Consider this finding in the survey:

The survey also reflected that 72 percent of college students routinely spend an entire day without writing one character by hand. Furthermore, 23 percent of respondents believe that handwriting is no longer very important with the development of computers.

I almost never write anything by hand. In fact, in the past few weeks, the only thing (aside from my signature) I've written are some words on a white board during class. To be honest, and my students can attest to this, my penmanship is a total embarrassment, and I'm talking about English. Of course, my handwriting has never been all that good. Moreover, since I have zero talent when it comes to drawing and other visual arts, I always knew that writing Chinese characters was a dim prospect for me.

Interesting that only 23% of the students in the survey thought that handwriting was no longer important. I would have expected a higher number. This suggests that although the majority of students' skills have degraded significantly with the advent of computers, the kids might look at this with some regret. Obviously this is causing a great deal of angst in some circles:

Experts have expressed worry over the phenomenon of disappearing penmanship skills. Handwriting is a very important part of Chinese culture, and many arts, such as calligraphy, are derived from the system of writing characters.

"We can no longer afford to ignore the decline in handwriting abilities, and we must take action to prevent it," said Yu Chu, a social critic. "It will be too late to react when Chinese handwriting is totally lost."

That's the funky thing about ideograms. Writing them is an artistic act, or can be, and this is an integral part of the culture here. Losing that is a huge deal, language learning issues aside.

However, life goes on. Computers aren't going anywhere, and if anything, new and improved artificial intelligence (AI) will no doubt mean further erosion of some of the skills we currently hold so dear, not to mention obviating the need to acquire mastery over foreign languages. For example, real time foreign language translation software has gotten much better over the past few years. Imagine what it's going to be like in the next five decades? At this point, it's all just a question of processor power and related issues (e.g., batteries for mobile devices).

I bet a lot of folks who travel for business won't even bother trying to learn another language in the future. Perhaps only scholars and those who have some personal or family connection to a culture/country will do so. In the legal biz, machine language translations are already gaining ground in some countries, at least as a first step in the translation process. (Not so much for Asian languages, but give it time.)

Computer interfaces will also keep evolving. Voice is getting much better, for example, and again, with better AI, a lot of those commands that we type these days will be entered by voice in the future. And if you're in a crowded subway car and you get a text, wouldn't it be easier to have your AI report to you via voice than digging your phone out of your pocket and squinting at the display? Then again, maybe the whole "glasses" thing will catch on or perhaps we'll someday get neural interfaces (my personal favorite).

My point is, our use of written language has already been significantly effected by interface technology, and everything points to an acceleration of that trend. I'm not saying that the written word is going away anytime soon, just that in the near future, it may be extraordinarily difficult for average folks to learn and maintain hand writing skills. I suppose we're already living in that world.

But the big debate will be: so what? I don't think that the people who advocate strong handwriting skills for the sake of history or culture will ultimately prevail over technology. Language is, after all, just a tool. We use it for communication. If there is art involved, wonderful, but that's not the primary goal. And if we develop machines that render that tool obsolete, or at least change the way we use it, then so what?

I suppose one could argue that we are becoming dangerously dependent on our machines. If we allow them to get in the way of our ability to communicate with one another directly, what happens if we suddenly find ourselves without those machines? You know, the old dystopian future story. That was a better argument a hundred years ago; we've come too far now as a species dependent on machines to be worried about that. There's no place for Luddites in 2012.

I would guess that the language/literature teachers have the much better chance of success. If they can successfully prove, by way of scientific studies, that learning how to write by hand is a crucial part of learning the language, then maybe there's a chance that all this will survive.

But I have my doubts. Kids of 2 and 3 years of age are already using tablets. Classrooms are already equipped with a variety of computerized technology. And we already know that real life affords fewer and fewer opportunities to hand write. Within a few years, particularly after good smart card technology becomes more standardized, signatures may disappear for most transactions.

What's left? Writing out a shopping list for the supermarket? I know plenty of people who do so on their phones, and of course there are already apps for that.

I still have a penchant for printing out contracts and student papers and writing notes by hand, although I've already switched over to writing embedded comments in Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat when I need to review documents and share them with clients/opposing counsel.

Hand-written notes are still useful during client meetings and negotiations. But I used to feel the same way about class notes. When I was in law school in the 90s, I took notes by hand. By 2004 when I went back to school, I had already switched over to a laptop for taking notes. It won't be long before I do the same thing for business meetings, although staring at a laptop instead of the person sitting opposite me may come across as rude.

The future will be way cool, but there's a good chance that handwriting won't play a big role in it.

© Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chinese language, handwriting, interface, technology

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