Blogs » Society » How to build a good public life?

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• How to build a good public life?
• Shanghai, Beijing praised for air pollution monitoring, but more can be done
• Huawei partner offered to sell US equipment to Iran
• PLA Held Military Exercise Against Imaginary Cantonese-Speaking “Blue Army”
• Ai Weiwei, Gangnam Style
• Associated Press Films A PC Desktop Playing Ai Weiwei’s Gangnam Parody, Washington Post Labels It “Raw Video”
• Ningbo girl climbs in sewer to rescue phone, gets stuck
• Kindergarten teacher’s child abuse photo album sparks public fury
• Chinese ships enter Diaoyu waters for first time in three weeks
• Beijing Slice Ep09: Climbing The Waterfall
• Angry Birds teams up with McDonald's
• Facebook: We want our fans back (Announcement)
• Presented By:
• HALLOWEEN Parties: Weekendist Special Edition (Oct 26-31)
• Watch: Illegal Shanghai taxi driver runs over German, twice
• GM crops blamed for rise in "superweeds" in US
• Gender Gap Report: Chinese society fairly equal, Chinese politics not so much
• True reform in China is impossible until the PLA is nationalised
• I can't tell whether Spencer Tarring is joking or an idiot
• Does This Look Like A Fallopian Tube To You? A Case In Gender Studies

How to build a good public life? Posted: 25 Oct 2012 09:36 PM PDT This is the 1510 Digest, a weekly roundup of recent essays and articles published on the Chinese web, with links to translations on the Marco Polo Project. This week's digest brings together two recent pieces which, in different ways, show the influence of the Western cannon on Chinese intellectual life. In 'How to build a good society', Zhant Tianpan reviews professor Ren Junfeng's book on civic virtue and civic government, itself based on a reading of Toqueville's "Democracy in America". In 'Love and Justice', Professor Chen Hongguo proposes a 'reading list' of nine key texts for thinking broadly about this topic, a majority of which reflect 'universal' European and American experience. How to build a good public life? By Zhang Tianpan, 16 October 2012 In this post, Zhang Tianpan reviews of a book recently published by political scientist Ren Junfeng on civic virtue and civil government. The book is based on Toqueville's 'Democracy in America', and questions the current situation of Chinese public life in the light of this analysis. For Toqueville, three main factors contributed to the development of American democracy: the natural environment, the legal system, and public sentiment – the latter being the most important. In turn, this democratic public sentiment came from people's experience in American townships, which gave rise to tightly knit communities, and formed a breeding ground for democracy. Based on that understanding the question raised is: how come Chinese village autonomy did not spontaneously give rise to a democratic society, life it happened in America? Various historical factors can explain it: partly the decomposition of traditional village ethics under the influence of modernity; partly the fact that village autonomy is largely promoted top-down by the Executive; and partly the pressures of urbanisation on the land and the people. Civic virtue is the foundation for a solid civil government. But the reasoning presents a particular difficulty, as civic virtue is fed by massive participation in public affairs – which is in itself the characteristic of a civil government. In other words, civic virtue and civil government cannot easily be set apart, but reinforce each other. The end of this post attempts to clarify the two core concepts. Civic virtue can be defined as each person's capacity to follow their own internal morality and exercise self-restraint, while allowing for public discussion. Civil government is defined as self-management by communities, where each person shows an interest for, and participates in, the management of public affairs. Marco Polo translation: How to build a good public life? Original link: 好的公共生活何以成为可能？ Love and Justice By Chen Hongguo, 21 September 2012 In this post, professor Chen Hongguo proposes a reading list as a basis for reflecting on the broad question of love and justice. Aside from giving titles, he sums up the core argument of the book, and reasons for proposing it. His selection starts with three cornerstones of the Western cannon: Job, Antigone, and Socrates' Apology. The remaining ones – some novels, some essays – will take readers through Nazi Germany ('The Reader), American ships ('Billy Budd, Sailor'), or the works of Shakespeare ('Law and love: the Trials of King Lear). The selection only contains one Chinese piece: '曼陀罗', a play recounting a tale of seduction in Nepal. And the only book in this list set in a familiar Chinese setting, 'The death of Woman Wang', was written by Yale Professor Jonathan Spence. This post is remarkable not so much for the way Chen Hongguo analyses each of these books or his justification for choosing them, but for this very selection, and the cosmopolitan literary world it encourages readers and students to inhabit. Marco Polo translation: Love and Justice Original link: 谌洪果：有关"爱与正义" All articles in this digest and a large range of other Chinese readings are accessible at Marcopoloproject.org. Some are available in English, French and Spanish translation. (You can join the project if you'd like to help with translations.) Danwei is an affiliate of the Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University. This posting is a result of one project that is part of that on-going collaboration. The China Story, China Heritage Quarterly and East Asian History are publications of the Australian Centre on China in the World.

Shanghai, Beijing praised for air pollution monitoring, but more can be done Posted: 25 Oct 2012 09:00 PM PDT There has been a marked improvement in the provision of air quality data in a number of Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. However, NGOs suggest that the government could be making better use of real-time air pollution reports, and some cities lack any reports whatsoever. [ more › ]

Huawei partner offered to sell US equipment to Iran Posted: 25 Oct 2012 08:00 PM PDT More bad news for Huawei. As if being classed as a "significant security concern" by the US Congressional Intelligence Committee wasn't enough to scupper any ambitions the firm had in America, Reuters have now revealed that an Iranian partner of Huawei, "last year tried to sell embargoed American antenna equipment to an Iranian firm". [ more › ]

PLA Held Military Exercise Against Imaginary Cantonese-Speaking “Blue Army” Posted: 25 Oct 2012 08:02 PM PDT On Oct 25th, CCTV reported that PLA Hong Kong garrison held an military exercise against an imaginary Cantonese-speaking "Blue Army". The military exercise was set in ordinary Hong Kong streets. Source "Blue Army": Hong Kong Separatism According to Oct 26th Metro Daily, Tri-Service Military Exercise is Suspected to Target Hong Kong Separatism The conflict between China and Hong Kong becomes more intense. In many protests, there were people holding the blue dragon-and-lion flag which symbolises the colonial era. The former deputy director of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, Chen Zhoer, claims many times that Hong Kong separatism is rising recently. Coincidentally, this tri-service military exercise on Wednesday tested the garrison's combat abilities with the imaginary "Blue Army" seizing mountainous area in New Territories and nearby streets. A political commentator thinks that holding a large-scale military exercise aiming at Hong Kong separatism will only disgust Hongkongers. ****Publish First. More Later****

Ai Weiwei, Gangnam Style Posted: 25 Oct 2012 07:46 PM PDT After some pretty broad attempts to connect China and Gangnam Style, I have an indisputable relationship: Ai Weiwei has come out with his own cover of the hit song and video. Pretty bad, but, hey, its Mr. Ai, and the significance of handcuffs is obvious, if overdone. Fortunately, Mr. Ai is an extraordinary visual artist–and heroic dissident, 'cause he sure can't dance Still I love it, and he remains my hero. For a few bits of analysis, see the NYT's 'Ai Weiwei Covers 'Gangnam Style' Video.' And, if you don't know what 'grass-mud horse' also sounds like in Chinese, write me.

Associated Press Films A PC Desktop Playing Ai Weiwei’s Gangnam Parody, Washington Post Labels It “Raw Video” Posted: 25 Oct 2012 07:15 PM PDT We have officially just seen what happens when a 120-year-old man time travels from the 1910s to the 2010s and is told to "put that Ai Weiwei Gangnam video on the Internet." His head doesn't explode, but we wish it did. Look at the above. Just look at it as you would a Millie Brown art exhibition of vomit and bodily goo. "Raw Video," Washington Post calls it in its headline. If this didn't bum me out so much about media's prospects, I'd type 100 "ha's" and leave it at that. The worst part? It fucking autoplays.

Ningbo girl climbs in sewer to rescue phone, gets stuck Posted: 25 Oct 2012 07:00 PM PDT In Ningo, Zhejiang province, a 21-year-old woman waiting for the bus dropped her cellphone case in the sewer. She lifted the grate covering the pipe and crouched down inside to retrieve the case. However, when she tried to stand up again she found she was trapped, after struggling for 20 minutes she eventually had to call emergency services. Fire-fighters arrived and cut a wider hole to then pull the woman out of. (More photos after the jump) [ more › ]

Kindergarten teacher’s child abuse photo album sparks public fury Posted: 25 Oct 2012 05:53 PM PDT A young female kindergarten teacher pulls a little boy off the floor by his years. She keeps smiling, while the boy are crying out loud, his ears twisted out of shape. This was the most circulated image on Chinese social media yesterday. The very first person that shed light on the child abuse was a net user under the alias "Jiangjiang090080," who uploaded the aforementioned photo onto Sina Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, on the morning of October 24. This is obviously a new user. All of the handful of posts published under this account were about child abuse committed by the same kindergarten teacher. The user wrote under one photo, "Hope any news organization with a good conscience can go investigate it." Within hours, the ear-pulling photo was all over the place on Sina Weibo. Net users were so outraged by the scene that they spread the image around, vowing to ferret out the identity of the monster and bring her to justice. What ensued was a new round of 'Human Flesh Search', a spontaneous effort made by Chinese Internet vigilantes to punish the morally wrong by exposing their identities and subjecting them to public shaming, using crowdsourced human intelligence. Soon, the collective wisdom of online crowds has led to important findings: Her name is Yan Yanhong. She was born in 1992 and is now teaching at a private kindergarten in the city of Wenling in eastern China's Zhejiang province. Netizens even made public her state ID number, her cell phone number, her QQ (a popular instant messaging tool in China) account, her home address and her educational background. In her blog hosted by QQ, hundreds more troubling torture images can be found, in which she seals off a boy's mouth with scotch tape, throws a boy into a trash bin, takes off a boy's pants and exposes his genitals, makes a boy and a girl kiss one another… Under some of the photos, she writes, "Deserves it." A few net users left comments and advised her to delete these photos, to which she replied, "Not a big deal." "I throw him in," she wrote as the caption. "Try to be disobedient!" The boy is made to keep a kowtow position: kneeling and touching his forehead to the floor. "Try to be disobedient!" "Aunt (referring to herself) makes them so." Empty bottles of Tsingtao Beer at the corner of the classroom. Was she even sober? Yan Yanhong was fired by the kindergarten and arrested by the local police on charges of "making a public disturbance"on the same day. The cruelties she has inflicted on her students seem to come to an end, but the lessons on preventing child abuses that have percolated Chinese schools have just begun. By some estimates, about 40 percent of Chinese children are victims of various forms of maltreatment. 4.4 percent of them are severely abused. More than half of boys and nearly one third of girls suffer from physical punishment. One third of Chinese children have been publicly humiliated. About 2 percent have been sexually abused. An unscientific poll conducted by Sina Weibo right after the infamy of the villainous kindergarten teacher showed that of the 4,835 netizens that responded to the poll, 72.3 percent said they were "beaten by their teachers" at school. Sina Weibo poll Most children are not even aware that they have been abused. Parents, who are occupied with their own jobs and businesses, do not often communicate with their kids and are therefore uninformed about what happens at school. There is no governmental child-protection services or social groups that step in to stop child abuses. Moreover, there are two widespread notions in China that have impeded efforts to fight child abuse: one, "Spare the rod, spoil the child," that children can be and must be physically punished if they are expected to behave. Two, don't meddle with what's under another's roof; mind your own business, even if you see bruises on the body of a boy at your son's class. And the fact that Yan Yanhong was charged with "making a public disturbance" instead of violation of any child-protection law is a wake-up call for China. The local police say that they have come up with such an accusation because they are left with no other choice. There is no such crime as "child abuse" in China. The crime of "abuse" is defined to be concerning members of the same family. "Intentional injury" is applicable only when some degree of physical injury has been inflicted, which in Yan's cases has not. What probably frightens Chinese netizens most is the twisted mentality of teachers and caregivers like Yan who seek pleasure in torturing the weak and the vulnerable even though they themselves used to be a victim. "I simply thought this was fun," Yan talked to a reporter after she was found out. If the abused, after growing up and getting over the pains they received as a child, become abusers and pass down the tradition, thinking that it is a rite of passage and a chance to take it out, it will probably take at least a generation to clean it up.

Chinese ships enter Diaoyu waters for first time in three weeks Posted: 25 Oct 2012 06:00 PM PDT Japan's foreign ministry has issued a strong protest with China's ambassador in Toyko after the Japanese coast guard spotted four Chinese surveillance ships near one of the disputed Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea early on Thursday morning. [ more › ]

Beijing Slice Ep09: Climbing The Waterfall Posted: 25 Oct 2012 09:39 AM PDT Some of Beijing's best expat climbers they take on the waterfall at Bai He. Featuring Simon Adams, Ben Cook, Dave Gliddon, and Joachim Corstiaans. To learn more about climbing in and around Beijing, visit Beijing Climbing Club. The music featured in this episode is Begging In Rome by Cut By Ice and Départ by OpenChords. Previously: Beijing's Cheapest Haircut. |Beijing Slice Archives|

Angry Birds teams up with McDonald's Posted: 25 Oct 2012 09:45 AM PDT You've undoubtedly spotted these scowling, yet undeniably adorable feather-balls lurking at Shanghai's McDonalds, maybe as giant stuffed animals, toys, or window stickers with fake cracks surrounding them as if they were slingshotted into the window. That's because Angry Birds creator Rovio has joined forces with the fast food giant in a nationwide cross-promotion. [ more › ]

Facebook: We want our fans back (Announcement) Posted: 25 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT Shanghaiist recently reached 20,000 fans on our Facebook page (as of writing we have 20,402). That's 20,000 people who have told Facebook that they want to see our posts in their news feed, and yet, because of a new algorithm designed precisely to bleed small time publishers and blogs for money they don't have, our posts reach barely 10% of our total fans. [ more › ]

Presented By: Posted: 25 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT

HALLOWEEN Parties: Weekendist Special Edition (Oct 26-31) Posted: 25 Oct 2012 07:36 AM PDT Here it comes, our almost immaculate summary of all the ghost-friendly parties in town! You wanna know what's going on this weekend and on Halloween? We have picked the cool parties and bar events. All those events encourage you to appear in full masquerade, and many of them even hand out prizes to the best costumes: Zombies, ghouls, mermaids, slutty nurses, greedy vampires, mummies, whatever you can think of! Read on for all the details, or check out our calendar for more! [ more › ]

Watch: Illegal Shanghai taxi driver runs over German, twice Posted: 25 Oct 2012 07:00 AM PDT On July 15 this year, a German named Sasha and two friends were picked up by an unlicensed taxi on Fuzhou Road, near the Bund. The driver, Wang Mou, asked for 100 RMB so Sasha left the car in disgust while he friends continued to try and negotiate the price down. When Sasha approached the car again, the driver accelerated, running over Sasha and fracturing his leg. Rather than stop to help, the driver runs over the fallen German again and flees the scene. [ more › ]

GM crops blamed for rise in "superweeds" in US Posted: 24 Oct 2012 09:48 AM PDT Genetically modified (GM) food crops are being blamed for a growing weed-resistance epidemic in the US as experts urge return of traditional crop rotation and diversity. Genetically engineered crops dominate cotton, soybean and corn farming in the US, accounting for more than 85% of the total acreage of all three. The vast majority of these GM crops are herbicide-resistant, bred to survive powerful pesticides that are used to kill invading weeds and help prevent crop loss. In theory, this helps reduce pesticide use, saving farmers money and reducing the negative environmental impact of the excessive use of chemicals, namely loss of wildlife. Both supporters and opponents of GM crops acknowledge that the introduction of GM crops in the US in the 1990s — in particular the popular glyphosate-resistant crops developed by Monsanto and branded as Roundup-ready — led to a fall in pesticide use. However, the increasingly widespread use of GM crops has, according to a recent study by Charles Benbrook, of Washington State University, coincided with a rise in herbicide-resistant weeds and pesticide used to control them. Biotech companies admit that herbicide use has started to increase over the past five years, however, they refuse to point the blame at GM crops. "Nobody disputes that in the last five years the trend on herbicide use in the US has increased and that one of the reasons for that is farmers have a problem with weeds resistant to glyphosate," says Graham Brookes of PGEconomics, a pro-GM consultancy. "But it is not only an issue related to GM crops. There are other non-GM herbicides that have got just as much, if not more, of a resistance problem." The rise of the "superweeds" While the media debate has tended to focus on the safety of GM crops and concerns about large biotech companies like Monsanto controlling the seed market and in turn, farmers, the problem of weed resistance in relation to GM crops, so-called "superweeds", has slipped under the radar. Recent estimates from the International survey of herb-resistant weeds suggest 16 million acres (65,000 square kilometres) of cropland in the US is infested by glyphosate-resistant weeds. Benbrook, who also works for the Organic Centre in the US, argues the figure is more likely to be 60 million acres (243,000 square kilometres). He predicts two-thirds of US cropland will be infested with weeds resistant to glyphosate within two to three years and says GM companies should more openly acknowledge the downsides of the mass switch to GM seeds reliant on glyphosate-based pesticides in the US. Biotech companies themselves disagree, saying weed resistance has been "overplayed" as a problem. Brookes estimates just 5-10% of the crop area in the US has a weed resistance problem, well short of Benbrook's future prediction. "If it was a bigger problem for farmers we would be seeing them switching away from these crops," adds Brookes. He believes farmers should take the blame for the problem for overusing pesticides and not properly managing their farmland and that farmers should start to consider growing non-GM crops in some years to help stem the resistance problem. For agriculture globally, the suggestion that GM crops are actually causing problems for farmers and forcing them to use more pesticides is a strong argument against using the technology. "The creation of GM crops totally changed what weeds were subjected to…changed the weed resistance problem from an easily managed problem to a global crisis for farmers," says Benbrook. "In the history of agriculture, there has never been an instance where resistance to a herbicide has spread so far and wide, and so fast, and imposed such profound economic and environmental consequences on farmers and rural communities," says Benbrook. An "arms race" against nature The biotech lobby group in the US, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, says in a statement that they "stand behind biotechnology's environmental benefits and its role in feeding a growing world". However, at the same time, biotech companies themselves are developing more powerful chemicals to tackle weeds resistant to existing pesticides. Dow Agrosciences is set to introduce a new GM crop based on the controversial Vietnam war weapon Agent Orange. Dow says the pesticide is essential for maintaining food production: "Farm herbicide use has been steadily increasing for a number of years, and that increase is going to get worse without new agricultural technology to combat glyphosate-resistant weeds." The scientific journal Nature was among those sceptical of the long-term success of an escalating "arms race" of more and more powerful chemicals. "The [weed resistance] problem has escalated since the widespread introduction of Monsanto's Roundup Ready and similar crops over the past decade allowed farmers to apply glyphosate more liberally," an article in the journal in May 2012 states. "The conventional approach is to switch to a different herbicide and engineer crops to withstand it. A number of analysts feel that such an approach is short sighted and doomed to fail," agronomist Matt Liebman of Iowa State University in Ames is reported as saying. The solution for Benbrook and others is not more chemicals and GM crops but a switch away from monoculture and the reliance on GM. He says Monsanto's Roundup-Ready crops have encouraged "excessive reliance" on one weed management tool — glyphosate herbicide — and that is "bad" weed management. Also negative, at least in the eyes of some, is that the technology has helped move along the trend toward larger farms and fewer man-hours per bushel harvested. It promotes specialisation, and undercuts more diverse cropping patterns. "Simple, farmers need to diversify their weed management tools and tactics. There are two ways to reduce resistant weeds and pests. One of those tactics is to use crop rotation, plant cover crops and use different field techniques to break the cycle of plants and insects. Another step, often overlooked, is to diversify the herbicides sprayed on any given field. Instead of just using a glyphosate year after year, farmers should mix up their choice of herbicides so the weed populations are confronted with herbicides that use different modes of action. If producers of corn and soybeans would only apply glyphosate once every three years, there likely would not be a problem," says Benbrook.

Gender Gap Report: Chinese society fairly equal, Chinese politics not so much Posted: 25 Oct 2012 06:00 AM PDT The World Economic Forum has released the 2012 edition of it's annual Global Economic Gender Gap Report (pdf). China is ranked 69th of 135 countries (lower number = more equal), mainly due to the huge gender gap within the CPC. [ more › ]

True reform in China is impossible until the PLA is nationalised Posted: 25 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT It's easy to forget that the People's Liberation Army, the largest military force in the world, is not actually the army of China, but the military wing of the CPC. Liz Carter at Tea Leaf Nation highlights the growing clamour, in this time of political transition, for the PLA to be nationalised. [ more › ]

I can't tell whether Spencer Tarring is joking or an idiot Posted: 25 Oct 2012 04:00 AM PDT Spencer Tarring, aka DJ Spenny, claims to be "Shanghai's No. 1 DJ" and writes a semi-regular column for City Weekend: Shanghai which is either an Onion-esque, practically pitch-perfect parody of every puffed-up idiotic British DJ; or the ramblings of a sexist, egotistical moron. [ more › ]

Does This Look Like A Fallopian Tube To You? A Case In Gender Studies Posted: 25 Oct 2012 01:59 AM PDT Here is Xinhua's latest slideshow, "Gourd craft-based products attract collectors in N China." We tried, briefly and unsuccessfully, to see penises where there were none, for gourds, however phallic, fall short of the "unintentional dong" standard. But there is something better. There is something better indeed. Fallopian tubes. Yes, the good ol' f-tubes. The rollicking double fallope. The tip-top durable oviducts. The trusty utero-tubal superhighway. Determined to confirm what is clearly an overt attempt by one of China's major organs (of state media, I mean) to incept us with images of the female anatomy (for what purpose? Creation as a sublimated desire of procreation, art standing in for sex? Unclear for the moment), I posed the question "Does this look a fallopian tube to you?" to several people on gchat. The responses I got were very, very interesting, and — I'm not going to lie — probably say more about one's gender than anything else. I'll divide the answers into two groups: Men and Women. First, the ladies, who decided that the picture in fact didn't really look like fallopian tubes, due to its knots and upside-downness: The guys had no such equivocations. If you, in looking at the Chinese man's beautiful gourds, saw fallopian tubes, that makes you a MAN, man: Only one person abstained: (H/T Alicia)

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