Blogs » Politics » Pictures: Woman thief strips naked to resist arrest
Blogs » Politics » Pictures: Woman thief strips naked to resist arrest |
- Pictures: Woman thief strips naked to resist arrest
- Diao Si: New Internet Buzzword for “Loser”
- A conversation with Aminta Arrington on China
- Two-thirds of Americans see China as a military threat: poll
- Chinese military may establish presence in Sansha
- China’s Child-Swap Reality Show Highlights Class Divide
- Documentary Captures Plight of China’s Fortune Tellers
- Sheng Shuren: A Jounalist in New China – Part 5 – The Untouchable
- China: Support for ObamaCare
- Machine Guns: Not Just for Soldiers Anymore
- Rebel Pepper: A New National Emblem
- The Republic of China: Restoring a Father’s and a Nation’s Life Story
- Girl Power Up
- New York Times Launches Chinese News Site
- China Shows Force in Shaxi after Worker Riots
- Chinese Netizens React to U.S. Health Care Ruling
- Translation: The Sorrow Of Chinese Women
- Not what I was looking for at this night market in China
- Netizens anger over Nanjing chengguan officer stomping a street vendor
- The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay links) – 6/28/12
| Pictures: Woman thief strips naked to resist arrest Posted: 28 Jun 2012 02:57 PM PDT June 27, a woman thief stripped herself naked to resist arrest, after she and her husband were found stealing building materials from a residential community that was under construction in Changchun City, the capital of Jilin Province. It was learned, the woman and her husband were caught red-handed by the security guards, when they were packing two bags of their ill-gotten building materials, worth about 1000 yuan. To resist arrest, the woman, wearing a short-sleeve top and pink pants, ran to the roof of a 6th floor building. She stripped all of her clothes off there and threatened to jump from the building. Her husband attempted to calm her down, but the woman still appeared emotionally unstable and refused his advice too. After a long standoff, a cop managed to subdue her by a chance ultimately. |
| Diao Si: New Internet Buzzword for “Loser” Posted: 28 Jun 2012 08:46 PM PDT Want China Times briefs English-speakers on a self-deprecating Chinese buzzword making waves on the internet this year:
Diao si is often contrasted with the "Rich, High, and Handsome" (高富帅), the winner figure who gets everything in life. © Wendy Qian for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| A conversation with Aminta Arrington on China Posted: 28 Jun 2012 08:19 PM PDT  Aminta Arrington, author of "HOME IS A ROOF OVER A PIG: AN AMERICAN FAMILY'S JOURNEY IN CHINA" (The conversation was carried out in two sessions, which I later joined into one. I should apologize for the echo, an artefact of Skype some times, which I can't remove after the recording has been made.) This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Two-thirds of Americans see China as a military threat: poll Posted: 28 Jun 2012 06:50 PM PDT Chinese soldiers on the training ground. (File photo/Xinhua) Nearly 70% of Americans consider China's emergence as a military power to be a serious or potential threat, according to the results of a 2012 survey on US-China relations. The US-China Public Perceptions Opinion Survey 2012, conducted by the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American group focused on addressing issues in Sino-American relations, polled 4,153 people from China and 1,400 people from the US. The survey found that in the US, 67% of the public, 81% of business leaders and 85% of opinion leaders believed China's growing military power was a serious or potential threat to the US. On the other hand, the proportion of Americans who view China as little or no threat rose from 20% in 2007 to 30% in 2012. Fifty-eight percent of the Chinese public feel that China will become the world's leading superpower in the future, although two out of every three Chinese people also feel that the US is attempting to prevent this from becoming a reality. On the current status of US-China relations, around half of the US respondents felt there had been no change since 2007, although the number of people who say it is improving has declined. In China, only business leaders feel that US-China relations are improving. The American public seems fairly split on whether the US or Chinese government is mostly to blame for worsening relations, although two-thirds of the Chinese public blamed the US government. The main concern for the Chinese public in 2012 is corruption, followed by jobs and the economy, income inequality and social security, the elderly and poverty. For Chinese opinion leaders, the decline in morality, the Taiwan issue and energy consumption were considered the three biggest issues for concern. Predictably, both the American and Chinese public and elites held a high degree of skepticism regarding the other nation's media reporting of their own country. Perhaps more surprisingly, Americans and Chinese are also skeptical about their own nation's media reporting of the other country, although almost half of the Chinese public think their country's media reports about the US are accurate. Respondents from both countries remain divided over whether or not to trust the other side. For the US to trust China, American elites believe pragmatic actions are required, such as focusing on improving transparency, human rights issues, fair trade, intellectual property protection and fair currency policy. Chinese elites, on the other hand, emphasized enhancing communication and cooperation, domestic economic development, trade, political reform and open government. For China to trust the US, American elites highlighted the need to enhance communication, understand cultural differences and improve fair trade, the trade deficit and diplomatic cooperation. Similarly, Chinese elites urged better communication and cooperation, non-interference in Chinese internal matters, reduced political posturing, respecting and understanding China, and avoiding strong-arm politics. Despite the lack of mutual trust, the survey's respondents generally held reasonably favorable views of the other country. About 55% of the American public held a favorable or somewhat favorable view of China, while about 59% of the Chinese public held a similarly positive view of the US. Other surveys have been less optimistic. A study from the Pew Research Center, an American thinktank, found only 40% of US respondents held a positive attitude towards China in 2012, down from 51% in 2007. Another study conducted by Gallup and China Daily found that 42% of Americans liked China compared to 44% who said they disliked China, although more than half of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 had a positive image of the country. Source: Want China Times |
| Chinese military may establish presence in Sansha Posted: 28 Jun 2012 06:33 PM PDT Military authorities are considering establishing a presence in the city of Sansha, a Ministry of Defense spokesman said Thursday. Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said during a regular press conference that China may set up local military command organs in the city according to relevant regulations. The State Council, or China's cabinet, has approved the establishment of the prefectural-level city of Sansha to administer the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha island groups and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea, while the government seat will be stationed on Yongxing Island, part of the Xisha Islands, according to a statement from the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The council has abolished a county-level administration office for the islands that was previously stationed on Yongxing Island. Source: Xinhua |
| China’s Child-Swap Reality Show Highlights Class Divide Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:51 PM PDT American reality shows like "Wife Swap," where two families swap mothers for a predetermined time, have already found notoriety. But did you know that one Chinese reality show swaps children?  Two very different lives intersect, briefly On X-change (变形计), a program on Henan Satellite Television, two children swap families for seven days. One child hails from a low-income rural household, the other from a relatively well-off urban household in one of China's booming metropolises. Over the course of six or seven episodes per swap, viewers learn about the background of both families – their jobs, income, work history, reasons for entering the program, and other interesting tidbits. The show recently returned after a three-year hiatus. Two destinies collide, as millions watch Western viewers familiar with reality television may find the narration preachy and the portrayal of the children a bit heavy-handed. Invariably, the "city kid" is portrayed as spoiled beyond belief, lazy, disobedient, and materialistic; the kid from the first swap owned five cell phones, and his father promised him an iPhone 4S if he participated in X-change. Meanwhile, the "poor kid" has high morals, a strong work ethic, innate dignity or goodness, and ineluctable charm.  Did the show's producers ever see this American export? Discerning viewers can sense that the producers made great efforts to edit the most heart-rending narrative possible. But once viewers become invested in the stories of both kids, even the blatant juxtaposition cannot prevent viewers from shedding a few tears and sympathizing with both. Millions of viewers have tuned in on television or via web portals such as Youku, China's Youtube, where statistics show people of all ages drawn to the story, particularly college students。Viewers younger than 29 years old make up 78% of the audience on Youku, where the show has been viewed 78 million times. Thousands of comments have poured in from netizens via Youku and Weibo, China's Twitter. In February, it was the third most-watched "Arts" program on Youku, garnering over 17 million views. In March, it was the most watched Arts program with 21.7 million views, beating out fan favorites like "Happy Camp"（快乐大本营) and "Day Day Up"（天天向上). Netizens: It's better than nothing Netizens have praised X-change for showing the adversity facing rural children while also having a tangible impact on those children's lives. In the final episode of the first swap, the urban student's teachers and classmates donated a large sum of money to the rural child's school. Attention from the show also prompted local government officials to build new dormitories for rural students. But attacking the root causes of these inequalities is a different task altogether. The Youku comments section overflows with lamentations about education and opportunity, poor rural infrastructure and governance, the growing urban-rural income gap, and the rampant materialism among China's urban youth. Viewers find the subject matter touching, but lament that such programming can only show one isolated situation while millions of rural Chinese children face hardship. Indeed, when publicity from the show inspired local leaders to renovate the lice-ridden, rat-infested student dormitories, it simply reminded viewers that corrupt local officials have been siphoning off resources that should already have been gone to rural children. Writing on Youku, Wyl1994 argues that "nowadays government officials say things more beautiful than any song, but don't actually do anything about it [the quality of education for poor kids]." Some are hopeful, if only cautiously so. Zoaldyeck writes, "At least it has drawn attention to their problem and provided a sliver of hope to change their futures. It is clearly not enough to rely on themselves, they also need help from outside." 街头的菜 believes the show won't help most rural children, but hopes that the development of public welfare organizations will improve the lives of children in rural mountain areas.  This contestant admits he was promised an iPhone 4S for participating Viewers like Weibo user @Lost Girl are also concerned that such a program could harm its young participants, especially the rural child who spends a week in a city but is then forced to return to a village with infinitely fewer resources and opportunities. HeNrYtYf insists it is like going "from hell to heaven and then back to hell, this sort of gap will have what sort of impact on the rural child's psychology?" Lucylijia recommended a follow-up with the kids from previous shows, as well as a psychologist to debrief with the families afterwards. Despite the criticisms, X-change has the distinction of being the only program in Youku's Top 25 "reality" shows that is not a talent contest, competition, or dating program. For that fact alone, it is highly recommended for anyone seeking a glimpse into the lives of rural Chinese children. For its part, netizen reaction to X-change shows how today's young urban population perceives its own place of privilege within Chinese society, and the responsibility they feel for the social welfare of others.         |
| Documentary Captures Plight of China’s Fortune Tellers Posted: 28 Jun 2012 06:33 PM PDT Beijing director Xu Tong's second feature-length documentary Fortune Teller (Suan Ming, with English subtitles, available on Youku) details the story of a Buddhist handicapped man, Li Baicheng (pseudonym), and his deaf, mute, mentally disabled wife, Pearl Shi. The documentary won the Jury Prize at the Chinese Documentary Festival, was selected among the Best Ten documentaries at the China Independent Film Festival, and was an official selection for the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2011. The documentary shows that Li's hard life stems from not only from his handicapped condition, but also the lack of government aid and his unsteady job as an independent fortune-teller in poor regions of Hebei province. Viewers learn from Li Baicheng that during the years of the Cultural Revolution, blind men would travel and tell stories in groups of two to three. Late in the night, they would start telling fortune undercover, but a few in the audience would sometimes report their activities. The blind men would then be pushed to join the labor force. "It was rough for blind people… It was miserable," Li recalled. "Even today, fortune-telling is the target of the 'crack downs' and lies in a legal gray area," Li Baicheng commented on the dire business in the documentary. Some local governments crack down on "superstition" along with anti-pornography and anti-crime raids. But Fengshui, a variation of East Asian Buddhist and Taoist mystical practices, fairs well in contrast to Baicheng's fortune-telling. In Singapore, a company named "New Trend Lifestyle Group" provides Fengshui services and plans to file for an IPO in London:
See also: Hard-pressed Documentary Makers Keep Rolling Chinese Documentaries Show Realities Missing from Chinese Films Xu Tong introduces his film Fortune Teller © Wendy Qian for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Sheng Shuren: A Jounalist in New China – Part 5 – The Untouchable Posted: 28 Jun 2012 05:38 PM PDT Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 The Shengs were a prominent family in Ningpo. There were the old Shengs and the new Shengs; Mr. Sheng's family was the old Shengs, landowners for generations. The family residence consisted of ten adjoining quadrangles, the innermost being the ancestor hall where memorial tablets and portraits of ancestors were displayed. I loved to play there the best, said Mr. Sheng, on my family's visits when I was a little boy, because it was as big as a basketball court and I could run amok there, whereas my older sisters were scared and wouldn't dare to go. Mr. Sheng's mother was also from Ningpo, the daughter of a brewery owner. Mr. Sheng's eldest sister and Sheng Shuren, his only older brother, were both born in Ningpo.  An old house in Ningbo. In the early 1920s when Shanghai was experiencing an unprecedented industrial boom, their father moved his family there. For some years, he was the sales executive of the legendary Tian Chu MSG manufacturer, travelling frequently in Southeast Asian countries and all the way to San Francisco across the Pacific. He did very well and the Shengs lives comfortably in their house inside the French settlement, where Mr. Sheng's older sisters and brother grew up and Mr. Sheng himself was born. In the mid 1930s, Mr. Sheng's father founded a kerosene refinery and owned a barge that transported goods between the plant and the Wusong Mouth where the Huangpo River meets the Yangtzi. Just as the father's career was peaking, the Japanese bombed the plant, destroying everything, and took away the barge. Mr. Sheng's father was instantly bankrupted, had to sell the house, and the family lived on savings. After the Japanese surrendered, the Nationalist government took over the barge. Mr. Sheng's father used whatever connections he could and paid "activity fees" to a lot of people hoping to retrieve the only property he had left. The bribes added up but did not bring back his barge. By the time the communists took over Shanghai, there was no trace of the boat anymore. In Ningpo, over the years, Mr. Sheng's grandmother had accumulated more land using the money her son had been sending her, and when the communist land reform took place, her land and the family home were seized and distributed to the poor. In the 1950s, Mr. Sheng's father worked in Hong Kong for a few years and returned to Shanghai at the end of the decade because of declining health. In February 1961, Mr. Sheng, already teaching at Anhui University, saw his older brother when he visited home for the Chinese New Year. He looked pretty well, said Mr. Sheng. Did he? I was surprised to hear that. But on second thought it made perfect sense: After a year and half in the forced labor camp, he could only be glad to return home and in the company of the family. True that he had just suffered the most egregious injustice, but the full meaning of it could take some time to manifest itself, and, in any case, it is not hard for a capable man in his prime, like himself, to keep hope alive. After the Chinese New Year, Sheng Shuren returned to Beijing—as was required of him—to "take care of the paperwork." That included cancelling his resident registration from municipal Beijing and signing the "Conclusions" about his case in the Organization Department of the Xinhua News Agency that stated "Sheng Shuren has admitted to the aforementioned wrongdoing without reservations" and announced his expulsion from the Agency. It didn't matter that he had never admitted to the charges against him, nor had anyone asked for, or allowed him to express, his opinions about his own case. He signed the paper, prepared beforehand and dated, placed in front of him as he was supposed to. On his way back to Shanghai, he stopped in Hefei to see what Anhui University was like. His younger brother was trying to find him a teaching job at the university. In bad need of talent, the university responded eagerly. But many days passed without a follow-up, and when Mr. Sheng inquired, he was simply told no without an explanation. Back in Shanghai, Sheng Shuren found he was denied a Shanghai resident registration by the Municipal Public Security Bureau. He became what the Shanghaiese called a "pocket registration," or a shadow resident. Luckily for him, he was issued a Food Ration Certificate, except that the ration for a regular adult was 14 kilos a month but for him it was 12.5 kilos. Soon after he returned, his wife divorce him, each having the custody of two children, although, Mr. Sheng said, his wife still helped take care of the other two children and she also gave all the jewelry the Shengs had given her years ago for her wedding back to her husband to help him out. My brother's subsequent attempts to find a job had all come to nothing, said Mr. Sheng, and he began to teach English stealthily—if caught, he would be in more trouble—to scrape a few yuan here and a few yuan there. His eldest daughter was a brilliant student, did very well on her national college entrance exams, but was denied a college admission because of her father. She came to me, said Mr. Sheng, asking what she should do; I coached her to make a high-minded gesture in school by saying "I love the Party with all my heart and I am prepared to go anywhere the Party assigns me." My hope was, said Mr. Sheng, that, by looking righteous, perhaps she would arouse someone's sympathy. But nobody took pity on her. Later on, Mr. Sheng found a job for her in Yunnan, the southwestern province, through his connections.  Sheng Shuren, around 1965, wearing a pin of the foreign language school where he was teaching, a hopeful time for him. In mid-1960s, Shanghai Foreign Language College established a training program for studying-aboard candidates, and, with the help from his friend Qian Weifan, Sheng Shuren taught English there. The hope was, if he continued to teach and make himself essential, perhaps the college would offer him a permanent job down the road. But before long, the Cultural Revolution came, the training program was scrapped. During the Cultural Revolution, Sheng Shuren was largely spared the fresh assault on the educated class that reached a new, vicious peak, thanks to the fact that he had already been ostracized from society, without registration, jobless, and reporting to no particular work unit. One summer though when I was on vacation at home, said Mr. Sheng, my brother disappeared all of a sudden one day. His eldest son and I looked for him for three or four days and couldn't find him. Finally, we found him in a little hostel occupied by a faction of Shanghai's "revolutionary rebels" who had detained him at the black market and kept him for twenty or thirty days before letting him go. An old woman with bound feet told on him, he later told me. In Shanghai at the time, said Mr. Sheng, everybody knew the black market and used it, but only people like him, if not cautious, would be picked on. That was how he spent those years, said Mr. Sheng, earning a few yuan stealthily teaching English, getting some help from his two older children after they had grown and had jobs, and, now and then, my mother would tuck a few yuan into his hand. It was a hard time for the rest of us too, said Mr. Sheng, my monthly salary was fifty yuan, my sisters struggled too, all of us had to support our parents, and we had not been able to help him. When he was hit by a car and died, said Mr. Sheng, on his way to or from a hospital visit, no one in my family was in Shanghai. The neighborhood committee sold his furniture—the furniture my parents had left behind—on the spot to whoever took it and for whatever offer and paid for his hospital bills and his cremation before one of his sons made it back to Shanghai. Have you read Rabindranath Tagore? Mr. Sheng asked me. I said I know the name, I might have read a few pages of Stray Birds in college, but I have forgotten it all. My brother became the untouchable, said Mr. Sheng, when he came back from Beijing. Do you see? In the same sentence Uncle Erning mentioned Sheng Shuren's name, he also named the charge against him: Obscenity against women. It was the first question I asked Erjia when he said he knew Sheng Shuren. "Ah!" Erjia's voice leaped out of tune to a shrill. "In Xushui, it was a mayhem of people working day and night those days, and Erning said Sheng Shuren had to pee badly, so he ran to the edge of the field to relieve himself. When he did so, a woman saw him and made a scene of it. That was that! That was how he committed 'obscenity against women!'" Erjia recoiled in pain and protest. "Erning said when they charged him with obscenity against women, the very woman who saw him laughed out loud! How did that bear out the charge? Erning said 'An insult to common sense! Impossible to reason with them! Yet they can arrest you anytime they want, and you can do nothing but swallow it!'" Uncle Erning, of course, was raging about not just Sheng Shuren's case, but also his own. I thought about the word "shameful". Shame, it seems, has its own life regardless of its cause and whether there is justice to it. It lived with him like a shadow and lives on long after he was gone. Even Erjia would unconsciously use a word like that. Such is the story of one man, also a story about darkness and lies. The End Sheng Shuren is available on Kindle Filed under: history, Life in China Tagged: Anhui University, Beijing, Chinese New Year, Cultural Revolution, History, journalism, Shanghai, Sheng Shuren, Xinhua News Agency         |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:34 PM PDT At Tea Leaf Nation, David Wertime looks at reactions to the US Supreme Court's vote yesterday in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). "Evil capitalism. Why can't Chinese socialism be as evil?" retorts one microblogger. Written by John Kennedy · comments (0) |
| Machine Guns: Not Just for Soldiers Anymore Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:34 PM PDT While the world bites its nails over China's military growth, China itself has more internal concerns. 2012 marks the second year since national spending on "public security" has surpassed that of the military. This year's budget for jails, courts, police and various security and para-military forces is 701.8 billion yuan (US$110 bn), an 11.5% increase from 2011. By contrast, military spending went up 11.2% to 670 billion yuan (US$105 bn). Disaster relief and border patrol are just part of public security's purview. Police and para-military are often called in to control "mass incidents," public gatherings and protests. Armed police were dispatched to Lhasa after two monks self-immolated on May 27. Others have gone to the scene of riots in Zhongshan and Zuotan, Guangdong. The star of this year's China Police Expo at the Beijing International Convention Center was a 7.62 mm Gatling machine gun built by the Chongqing Jianshe Industry Group (pictured above). It can fire anywhere from 2500 to 6000 rounds per minute. To some Chinese netizens, it's a terrifying icon of public security. "This is a f***ing policeman's machine gun," writes the blog Fantastic Record. Weibo user WildhouseNEWS asks, "Who are the police going to mow down with this gun? The American imperialists or the Japanese devils? Who are they selling this thing to?" It's not clear which foreign police forces put their money on this gun, but netizens suspect it gets plenty of use at home. It looks like China is at war with itself. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Rebel Pepper: A New National Emblem Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:16 PM PDT Cartoonist Rebel Pepper posted this reinvention of the Chinese national emblem on his Tencent Weibo. Crescents of bricks replace stalks of wheat; where stately curtains once hung now stand a bulldozer and excavator. In place of the gate tower leading to the Forbidden City is a house marked "demolish" 拆. This is Chaina, the torn-down land. Local governments can turn a quick profit by selling land to developers. No matter if that land is currently occupied. Forced eviction and demolition cause enormous domestic strife. It was the prime factor in the Wukan revolt last winter, and most recently of protest in another Guangdong village, Zuotan. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| The Republic of China: Restoring a Father’s and a Nation’s Life Story Posted: 28 Jun 2012 02:21 PM PDT Memo #167 By Diana Lary – lary [at] mail.ubc.ca  Pai Hsien-yung and Diana Lary, Hong Kong, June 12th, 2012 One of the most famous modern Chinese writers, Pai Hsien-yung (Bai Xianyong 白先勇), has just brought out a photo-biography of his father, Pai Chung-hsi (Bai Chongxi 白崇禧). The book, Father and the Republic, was published in spring, 2012 simultaneously in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China – a breakthrough, a transcendence of political barriers. The book marks a new turn in the discussion of China's Republic, away from partisanship and towards historical objectivity. It restores the reputation of the greatest military strategist of the Republic, General Pai Chung-hsi. Despite his service to the nation, he has been almost written out of history on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. Pai's career paralleled the history of the Republic. In 1911, the 18 year old military cadet from remote Guangxi went to Wuhan for the Xinhai Revolution. In 1928, at 35, he commanded the forces in the last stage of the Northern Expedition. In the Resistance War against Japan, he was in command at two of China's victories. In the Civil War he came close to defeating the Communists in 1946. In 1949 he retreated with the defeated Guomindang forces to Taiwan where he lived until his death in 1966. Pai was immensely popular in wartime China, the hero of resistance, known as "Little Zhuge" (a reference to the legendary strategist Zhuge Liang). But neither the Guomindang nor the Communists gave him historical recognition. Chiang Kai-shek resented his military brilliance; he even saw him as a threat, and kept him under constant surveillance in Taiwan. On the Mainland, the Communists did not forgive him for his tough anti-communist actions. The official Communists line was, until now, to dismiss him as a "warlord." That this book now appears in both Taiwan and China is a tacit reminder of how distorted the history of China's Republic has been and a harbinger that a serious reconsideration of China's history of revolution can be discussed in public. A century after its foundation, Pai Hsien-yung is showing the way to a clearer understanding of modern Chinese history. If you enjoyed this memo, subscribe to our e-newsletter for free and receive new memos 2+ times per week via email. Links:
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| Posted: 28 Jun 2012 02:19 PM PDT The Economist's Analects blog reports on the present condition of women in China. The article focuses on urban women and their changing values on work and family:
Yet, according to the article, women with successful careers have their worries as well:
See also: © Wendy Qian for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| New York Times Launches Chinese News Site Posted: 28 Jun 2012 02:06 PM PDT On Wednesday the New York Times launched a Chinese news website, containing both original content and translations of English New York Times' stories. From the paper's announcement:
Almost immediately upon its launch, netizens noticed that the Sina Weibo account associated with the website was taken offline. While many suspected censorship, the account was back up several hours later and now appears to be accessible. From the Washington Post:
Meanwhile, readers in China had trouble accessing Bloomberg News on Thursday, though access was later restored. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| China Shows Force in Shaxi after Worker Riots Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:38 PM PDT Following two nights of rioting after a fight between a migrant teenager and a local boy in Shaxi, Guangdong, riot police have been brought in to restore order. BBC reporters visited Shaxi:
Deutsche Welle provides some background on the current situation of migrant workers in China, which contributed to tensions that sparked this week's violence:
Meanwhile, the official China Daily acknowledges that reforms are needed to resolve issues that lead to unrest, including an inherent inequality between migrants and local residents:
Read more about migrant workers and social unrest in China, via CDT. See much more about economic and social inequality in China today on our special page, "The Great Divide." © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Chinese Netizens React to U.S. Health Care Ruling Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:10 PM PDT  Word traveled from here to China at the speed of an electron. From UpstateNYer via Wikimedia Commons Exhibit #593 that the world is a small place: Chinese netizens have already reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court's hours-old ruling on the Affordable Care Act. We pulled a small sample of interesting (not necessarily representative) comments from Weibo, China's Twitter. At a historic moment like this, it's worth remembering the eyes of the world are on the Stars and Stripes. @小弟霄霖 [from Guangxi]: Evil capitalism. Why can't Chinese socialism be as evil? @丑人多作怪S [location unknown]：The U.S. financial situation has become [a pile of] dog sh–, and still they are [living large]. The whole world makes money in order to give it to the Yankees, eventually this good thing will come to an end. @勤劳小考拉 [from Fujian]：When Communist Party members see a doctor it's free, haha. @Richard_李唐 [from Shanghai]：The path of health care reform is doubtless a bright spot for the Obama administration. @豆麻麻-Kathy [from Shanghai]：China also needs this kind of leader, someone truly dedicated to helping common people. But it's easy to pass a law [Eds. - not in this Congress!], the real implementation and administration is the hard part. @杨宵yx [from Beijing]: Of course we can't get rid of 600 to 800 million people! It's too hard for China to make seeing a doctor as easy as it is in the US or Europe. The system isn't everything; the population is also a big problem. @ 憂_鬱_王_子 [from Guangzhou]：The mandate means that employers will have to spend more money helping employees purchase insurance. With higher costs, they'll lay off workers, which means more unemployed and an even worse economy. @未品蓝山的微博 [from Nanjing]：The ruling on the bill, whether Obama is re-elected, in fact none of this has anything to do with you or me. But I really admire the fact that 26 states can file a Constitutional claim against a bill signed by the President. @山里人杨森 [from Zhejiang]：The moon seen from the U.S. is no rounder than the moon seen from China. The U.S. has bread, so do we. The U.S. has milk, so do we. But the U.S. has something that we billion-plus Chinese will never have in our lives. What's that? Congrats, you answered correctly, it's a vote.     |
| Translation: The Sorrow Of Chinese Women Posted: 28 Jun 2012 10:22 AM PDT Recent chatter about the status and rights of women on [blogging site] Douban and Weibo [China's Twitter] has prompted me to say something. I think of my maternal grandmother, who's never getting along with my oldest aunt because of her sexist attitudes—what the Chinese call "valuing the boys and slighting the girls." Before my oldest aunt gave birth, my grandmother happily sewed a small quilt for the "grandson" she was expecting, and went to visit my aunt with a bag of hard boiled eggs, only to find that she gave birth to a girl. She tore the quilt on the spot, dropped the eggs to the ground, and walked away immediately. This hurt my aunt a great deal, and the wound was never healed.  She suffers from sexism, and unconsciously oppresses her daughters and daughters-in-law even more. Similarly, my mother cannot forget what my grandmother has done to her either. When I was young, I often spent time with my grandmother, and never found that she treated me differently. But when I was older, my mother told me that my grandmother had in fact never held me in her arms since I was born, because I was a girl. Moreover, before and after my mother gave birth to me, my grandmother never took care of her, even though they both lived in the same district. I couldn't understand such "heartless" behavior on the part of my grandmother, until I got to know her more. According to my mother, my grandmother actually never liked kids—or, she didn't like to have that many kids. But at her time, you had no choice: you had to marry someone, and then have babies. There were no contraceptives, and once pregnant, you had to give birth to the child. Women had no status whatsoever in my grandmother's time. Women were not treated as individuals. They were destined to be wives and mothers, and if they failed at those, they were considered useless. When my grandmother was young, my grandfather was often away because of work, so she had to raise five kids all on her own. It's not hard to imagine the amount of pressure she had. She often relieved her bitterness by beating up the five children, who have no memory of intimacy with their mother, while their mother never enjoyed the process of children rearing. Children meant endless messing around and more burden. Such indifference under pressure was not as bad as the children grew older, but my grandmother's resentment of the status of women made her unconsciously hurt more women. Compared to my grandmother, my grandfather's sexist tendencies were not even half as severe. I think of my mother. She was born and raised in the army, married a military man and raised her own daughter there. She had a simple life. In that environment where discipline tops all, most families only have one child, and people are used ot it. According to the policy at that time, my parents could in fact have a second child. But they were busy with work then, and there was nobody to help, so they gave up the opportunity.  The One Child Policy is better observed in urban areas. But it's often not the case for the countryside. But this choice brought my parents enormous pressure after my father stopped serving the army. People from Guangdong province, especially those from the Chaoshan area, have very traditional views about having children. Almost everyone my parents came to know—colleagues, friends, relatives, educated and uneducated—first reacted with disbelief when my parents told them that they have only one daughter. These people do not understand why my parents made this choice, and think that they shouldn't have, because having only one daughter is simply wrong in their opinion. Years in Guangdong shook my father's beliefs as he became more and more conservative, sometimes even displaying regret at not having a second child. The "education" he received from his environment made him feel that the rules he was abiding by before weren't right, that he should have had a second child. This put a lot of pressure on my mother. Each time others asked about it, she felt like she was scolded. She was constantly reminded that she had not fulfilled her obligation. However, she never admitted her "wrongs," nor did she plan to make up for them. She still thought she had made the reasonable decision. (And I think this is especially precious.) But, to my disappointment, my parents still think that girls are girls. Every time when I made some progress in my career and reported to my parents in excitement, they would just say that the most important thing is my marriage. My mother often had a hard time falling asleep because of my "inactivity" in that aspect. In her opinion, marriage is that "1," while everything else is just a "0." If a woman doesn't get married at the right age, no matter how many zeros she has, it all comes down to nothing. My father, on the other hand, often expressed himself in his own way: "If you are a lad, I wouldn't say anything. No matter how late you get married, it'd be okay. But you are a girl. And a girl must…"  An extended family with eight kids? Not untypical. I went down to the south at twelve as my father left the army. I had had no idea about the concept the Chinese call "boys are noble and girls are servile," and had never felt repressed because of my gender. But once in the south, I quickly realized it was a different world. There was hardly any other single child like me in middle school, and it was common for one family to have two to three children. If the first child was a daughter, the family usually didn't register her with the government, so that they could hope to have a boy. If the first child was a boy, the family would usually hope to have one more. Girls didn't count. And women as wives simply had no say in this process. The force of tradition was so powerful, the neglect of women's will so complete, that if you were to dissent, you had to be prepared to go against the whole family. In many cases. your own parents could become your enemies. What I saw in the countryside shocked me: There were children everywhere. People did not restrain in child bearing. Compared to women in urban areas who were affected by the One Child Policy, women in the rural areas had more pressure, because they had no "legitimate" reasons to have fewer children. Many of my relatives have five to six children, often one child less than a year older than the other. There were so many cousins I couldn't tell which was from which family. The most unforgettable were a few neighbors of ours, who had given birth to eight or nine children, until they finally got a boy. Those mothers suffered from child bearing. They were younger than my mother, but they looked ten years older than their own age. They were weak, slim, and always stayed silent. I had never seen a family of more than ten people. These mothers left indelible impressions. Greater shock came from a relative of mine. This uncle had been a middle school teacher in the town for years. One day he took his daughter to our house and claimed that he wanted an operation on his daughter. My cousin was about twenty-four years old then. She looked fine, with normal height. There was no problem with her whatsoever. But my uncle said her arm had broken before, and the doctor didn't fix her bone right, so now each time she extended her arm, there would be a conspicuous bulge in the middle arm which looked very unpleasant. My uncle felt this would prevent him from finding a good son-in-law, that his future in-laws would not like his daughter because of this bulge. So he had to rebreak her arm, and reconnect the bones. Facing my opposition, he sighed, "You don't understand what it's like in the countryside. Many men are away as migrant workers, others take up drugs or gambling. There are more available women than men. It's hard for a woman to get married! Your cousin is already too old to find a husband!" I asked my cousin what her thought was. "You can leave the countryside and work in other places, you know." But my cousin stayed mild, "I listen to my dad." My uncle was glad. Women from the Chaoshan area are known for their virtues. As i live here, I often hear lectures about how women are "supposed to be" from parents, relatives, colleagues and friends, in the name of "wanting good" for us. The whole society constantly reminds you that women are not important, that they are ready to sacrifice and serve others any time, that they are willing to do all these. And it is very hard to be accepted by the society if a woman doesn't meet all these requirements.  Girls are called "goner girls" because parents raise them for others' families. They will marry a man and leave their mother's house one day or another. The status of women in the Chanshan area can be seen from the dialect, even. "Goner girl," this is what girls are called here, which means that they have to leave the family one day or another, that parents raise girls for others' families. Women also call relatives on their husbands' side the same respectful titles that their children give them. That is to say, they are not their husbands' equal in terms of familial titles, and are at the same level as their children. (I don't know if this is the case in other areas. As far as I know, things are different in eastern areas like Shandong province, and Shanghai.) In an unfriendly environment like this, how much respect could their be for women? How many women could there be with independent will? Very few, I'd say, even if they've long been economically independent. Discussions about the One Child Policy are really hot online these days. But if women are not socially treated as equals and lack forceful legal protection, if women are not free, cannot control their own bodies, then the so-called freedom to give birth can only become what a netizen termed "some men's 'freedom to overuse child bearing tools.' For these men, the problem is not women not having children. The problem is women not having children for certain men in patriarchic families." Before the rights of women are generally recognized by society, and when the convention of "valuing the boys and slighting the girls" is still deeply rooted, giving people more freedom to give birth may lead to more oppression of women in real life. [Thanks to 蓝调共和 for permission to translate her work. To read her original piece in Chinese, please click here.]     |
| Not what I was looking for at this night market in China Posted: 28 Jun 2012 08:46 AM PDT But the presentation caught my eye. |
| Netizens anger over Nanjing chengguan officer stomping a street vendor Posted: 28 Jun 2012 12:15 AM PDT Chengguan v.s. street vendors: a never ending story. Recently, a picture showing a chengguan officer stomping on a barbecue vendor has gone viral on Chinese microblogsphere and sparked intense criticisms again. A Weibo user, nicknamed "September舌甘", posted the picture, and wrote that when she was passing by a road near Wanda Plaza in Jianye Distrcit, Nanjing City at around 10 p.m., June 25, she saw a group of onlookers and this chengguan officer stepping on a vendor's neck. The tweet first caught attention of some news media, and then was quickly widespread on the Internet like wildfire, with the public anger over chengguan officers' abuse of power and violence. In a response, the local chengguan department explained the person pictured was not a chengguan officer, but just an assistant. He merely accidentally stepped on the barbecue vendor when assisting in the district's crackdown campaign against street vendors that night. The barbecue vendor was said to have waved a knife towards the officers during the crackdown campaign. After he was subdued and thrown on the ground, the assisting officer accidentally stepped on him, and just at that instant a passerby snapped the shot. However, the owner of the barbecue stall said in a phone interview that he did pull out a knife to try to scare away chengguan officers, but his younger brother was violently beaten and stomped on the ground at the time. |
| The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay links) – 6/28/12 Posted: 28 Jun 2012 03:59 AM PDT Another rainy, somewhat depressing day here in Beijing as we contemplate the economic slowdown. Well, some folks are probably focused on their summer holidays, so it could be worse. I spent a few minutes today reading a public opinion survey from the Committee of 100, an influential Asian-American group. Nothing earth-shattering in there, but I did find a few items of interest to talk about. And the news marches on: Financial Times: Chinese econ stats: to doubt or not to doubt? — The New York Times started this debate off several days ago with the usual talk about suspect economic stats and adjustments using proxy stats like electricity usage. The Financial Times now reports on the expected pushback (i.e., "our stats aren't that bad"), just in case you're keeping score at home. China Daily: Bigger share of taxes proposed for local govts — The saga of China's flagging local governments and the difficult policy choices available to the central government. We saw the other day that Beijing thought the risks outweighed the benefits when it came to local government bond issuance. Here's an alternative. Bloomberg: China Local Government Finances Are Unsustainable, Auditor Says — If you're looking for some additional background on local governments' fiscal challenges, this Businessweek article on the report of the National Audit Office is a good place to start. Depressing, but informative. Minxin Pei: Why China Can't Pick Good Leaders — Pei is a consistently harsh critic of the government here, so no great surprise at the tack he takes here. In short, he's not thrilled at the current slate of national leaders. Tea Leaf Nation: How Africans Live, and Struggle, in Southern China — Let's face it, expats are treated very differently depending on the color of their skin. Yeah, I said it. This is an under-reported story, so I'm glad to see that Tea Leaf Nation went after it. Caixin: China's Power Gap — Why do powerful officials get away with misdeeds while the average Zhou gets screwed over? Not an unimportant topic. Global Times: Under fire Carrefour sets up Party branch in Beijing — It's tough being a big multinational in China, and Carrefour has had its share of problems over the years. I don't know if this latest move will make a difference or not, but hey, at least they're trying to go local. Wall Street Journal: Undervalued Currency Isn't Beijing's Only Export Trick — Report on how China "fiddles" with the value of tax rebates in order to keep its exports attractive. The Register: Tech giants on trial as report reveals more Chinese factory abuses — Yet another NGO report on poor labor conditions in Dongguan, this one targeting VTech, not Foxconn. Here's my response. The above report on VTech was issued by the Institute for Labour and Global Human Rights. However, Foxconn/Apple nemesis China Labor Watch made accusations of their own today. Read about it in Rights group says Apple suppliers in China breaking labor laws. Two labor NGOs going after different China factories at the same time? Woof. Finally, a tough commentary in the official People's Daily (here's an English article reporting on it) on US China bashing suggests that some folks here in Beijing have run out of patience with the nimrods running for office in the US of A. Sure, the government here knows that the anti-China rhetoric of guys like Mitt Romney is meaningless, but after a while, it must piss them off. I don't blame 'em. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
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