The most hackneyed article about China you will ever read

You know how some poets write with a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary, and end up endlessly churning out couplets that rhyme "light" with "bight"? No? Right, of course not, cause that's FUCKING RIDICULOUS. You would have to be in third grade to do that.

Well, someone at Fox News decided to write a story about China -- sorta -- using a list of cliches that is FUCKING RIDICULOUS. Let's examine the first five paragraphs, shall we:

It could be said that China has engaged the west by fighting without fighting.

Which is why the Georgetown University men's basketball team received a Shanghai Surprise in its game the other night against the Bayi Rockets in China.

The game devolved into a fight worthy of the spectacle at the Palace at Auburn Hills, rather than the Great Hall of the People.

The only thing missing was an appearance from Ron Artest.

So much for ping pong diplomacy. Try KO diplomacy. All of the punches, kicks and chairs that were thrown represented a Great Leap Forward into what some dubbed "The Great Brawl of China."

Okay. We got:

• Shanghai Surprise (game was in Beijing)
• Great Hall of the People (game was nowhere near the Great Hall of the People)
• Ping pong diplomacy (I believe they were playing basketball)
  
• Great Leap Forward (next time the Atlanta Braves lose a game, I'm going onto my Royals blog and leading off a post with, "War is hell.")
  

But of course, no article written this poorly could go without a reference to ...

Bruce Lee called it the art of fighting without fighting.

Bruce fucking Lee.

I'm wracking my brain here, and I can't think of five comparable cliches for America. I mean, maybe "You're not in Kansas anymore," but you would have to REALLY TRY to write as lazy and cliched an article as the above. Like, you would have to google "most obvious references to American pop culture as seen in other countries" or some shitty phrase like that to get the list, then you'd have to print out the list, then put it in front of you as you build sentences and paragraphs around those items. You would get something like this:

War is Hell.

The pitcher was quickly reminded he wasn't in Kansas anymore. First there was a home run, then another. Someone should have called Social Services, because this was the Invasion of Normandy.

So much for the Four Horsemen.

Phillies 5, Braves 2.

Here's how the Fox News article ends:

Perhaps the era of fighting without fighting is over.

Enter the Dragon.

A dinner exchange with Mom

Me: Are these shrimps skinless?

Mom: Yes, in America, shrimps come without skin.

Have I already talked about HDTV?

U.S. of A: Free (and fast) Internet, HD TV and ... US Airways

First, I have to put on the record that US Airways is my new favorite airline, at least until I fly with Southwest again. I missed my flight from Regan National Airport to Kansas City TWICE within a span of 13 hours. Leaving aside the magnitude of incompetence required to accomplish this, I have to say that US Airways put me on another flight both times without charge.

The first time I missed it, on Friday night, was due to the fact that 1) I didn't know different colored trains share the same track in DC's subway system (and I was buzzed off America's actually-alcoholic beer), and 2) the subway train I was on (the wrong subway train) broke down as I was headed toward not-Regan. Then I switched trains and waited 30 minutes and then transferred (waiting 10 minutes) and got to the airport just as the flight was leaving the gate.

The second time ... well, there's no good excuse, really. I got to the check-in counter for my 9:20 am flight at 10 o'clock and told them I missed my flight -- again -- and the guy said, "You're making a habit of missing flights, huh?" I replied, "Yeah, it was idiotic." He put me on the 10:40.

*

Watching the US-Japan game on HDTV without drunk people next to me. Wow. When ESPN HD showed highlights of the '99 game, which wasn't in HD, all I could think was, HOW DID WE LIVE BACK THEN?

*

I can stream WWE Raw from Tudou.com without lag. To put this in perspective: I certainly can't stream YouTube (with VPN, of course) in China without having to pause the video every 10 seconds so that it loads.

American Internet is the thing I miss the most about this country.

And Paninis with bacon, bulgogi beef, grilled peppers and onions.

And my cat, Kiddy.

(Mom... goes without saying, I hope.)

*

Quick thought about this game that I'm watching on HDTV as we pass the 34-minute mark: I've never seen any goalkeeper layout as often as this Japanese keeper without being anywhere close to the ball. Poor keeper.

Not my best side, but ...

Just kidding, of course. Beijing Ultimate could use all the publicity it gets. Thanks to Vera Peneda and Global Times, which I believe I've said before is the best English-language publication in Beijing.

Article here.

Tonight at Punk

I might be reading as part of Global Times' Flash Fried Fiction finals. 6 to 9 pm is all I know.

Champions

Beijing Big Brother at Shanghai Open 2011

Videos here.

Mongolia?

"... Mongols and Mongolians always looked down on the Chinese as a inferior race of rice-cultivating peasants."

Thus begins a series of weird comments from BAAGII on this Foreign Policy article about Mongolia. Did you know, according to another commenter, Aquarium, that...

The original and modern meaning of “Hya” is castrated male slave or eunuch, and stavkove kancelarie tad is plural. Therefore, China is called Republic of “castrated male slaves or eunuchs” in Mongolian. This term is still used to describe China and Chinese. For example, Mongolians often say that Hu jintao is the Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, and the Mongolian meaning’s literal translation is actually “Hu jintao is the Head Eunuch of the People’s Republic of castrated male slaves-eunuchs”, in Mongolian.

Great and awesome. Er, hmm.

Just started a Mongolia tag. May revisit this subject later.

Out of the dark ages?

China may have relaxed its Gmail restrictions, but that's no longer relevant. My VPN is working again after a small hiccup and all is well in Internet world. Thank you to Support Team.

Happy 82nd, Nainai!

From Shaguoju near Xidan

At the Beijinger's Restaurant Awards yesterday

Slow fire rescue

It would be an exaggeration to call this the world's slowest fire rescue, because I can easily imagine fire rescues being slower (hey, at least the traffic is moving!), but let's all agree that if you want to be rescued from the Central Business District, it's best not to have an accident at rush hour.

The below video was taken just a little after 5 pm on Thursday, with big plumes of dark smoke clearly visible against a pale blue sky:



The fire began in the "afternoon," according to Xinhua, and as you'll notice because of the timestamp in that linked article, it was still ongoing at 6 pm. A friend of mine who works near CBD said the fire went on for about two hours before any firetrucks got to it.

Beijing's roads could use more private cars to impede vehicles that actually need the road. Buy some more cars, fucktards.

Google accuses China of blocking its mail service

Because China is indeed doing it. I think I said enough last week on the subject of this country's censors.

NY Times excerpt:

Google said that it was not having any technical problems with Google’s main Web site or Gmail service in China.

“There is no issue on our side; we have checked extensively,” Google said in a statement released Sunday. “This is a government blockage, carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail.”

Analysts who track Web developments say that the Chinese government may be intentionally disrupting access to Google and other Web services as part of a campaign to tighten Internet controls and censor material.

Global Times Flash Fried Fiction contest

I'm being more than a little self-indulgent in linking to this, but here's my entry in Global Times' fiction-writing contest.

As part of the competition, the Raffles Design Institute assigned some of its students to make posters related to each of the 12 finalists. The picture in the above link is the one that got the highest grade. Below is the poster I prefer:

On Charlie Sheen and Global Times (and al-Jazeera, et al.)

I didn't want to comment on this. I think satire's best left uncommented on, lest you become, unwittingly, the butt of the joke (see: Alessandro; Alessandro, fallout to; my friend's buzz thread; those in bullet points below). But now that Global Times' Charlie Sheen piece is out in the way-the-fuck open, I think it's time for me to throw in a couple cents.

But first allow me this detour: Charlie Sheen is an American hero. Can we all agree on that? Not because he lives the social liberal's dream life with three blond porn stars, but because he's been able to say, clearly and resoundingly, FUCK YOU to an establishment that includes prudish CNN and Wall Street Journal types, overly serious journalists trying to "make sense" of him, conservatives who are disgusted by him and anything resembling non-missionary-position sex, and amateur psychologists all the world over. Charlie Sheen is to be enjoyed while he's still with us (I don't say this with insensitivity) because he's the sort of one-in-a-million personality who, given the platform to communicate with wider audiences, eschews the phony in favor of brutal honesty and entertainment as if to say it actually is possible to be yourself and absolutely right-fucking okay ... okay to be interesting, okay to be funny, okay to have a laugh at everything staid and cliched. Because surely we must recognize how much of our lives are spent wading through the marshes of cliche, right? That we live trapped in houses within houses built by predecessors and ancestors and god-knows-whom, and that people like Charlie Sheen (and poets) open a window ever so slightly and allow us a whiff of freshness. Surely we must understand that the opportunity to diverge from our lockstep march toward death is an opportunity that deserves to be celebrated -- not crushed by loathsome words like "mental" and "unstable." Yes, I know Charlie Sheen is a tragedy wrapped in a comedy, but in all honesty, we have him to thank for giving that to us. Giving himself. America has allowed him to do that. He's the epitome of America in so many ways.

So any news media that uses Charlie Sheen (and they're all using them, those sluts -- worse than any of the porn stars Charlie's loved) in any way that is in the "Charlie Sheen spirit" is off to a good start. So Global Times deserves kudos off the bat here. Charlie Sheen as vehicle for satire. Charlie Sheen as net to catch the hypocrites, even long-time "China watchers" who really, really should know better.

Remember when I implied up top that the best satire ensnares as much as it incites laughter? Well, here is a compendious list of GT's victims:

• Shanghaiist's Kenneth Tan
  
• At least three people on my friend's buzz thread, linked above.
• Al-Jazeera's Melissa Chan
  
• At least he admitted to being "punk'd": Foreign Policy's Daniel Drezner
  
• Richard, Peking Duck (disappointing...)
  
• Snark, NICE! (I might have to spell it out for him: "nice" is in all-caps = sarcasm): former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors Robert Stein, who, instead of admitting he didn't get the joke, replied: "Yeah, as I remember. Chairman Mao had us in stitches for years."
  

Here's the thing with all these people: they failed to get the joke even after it was explained to them by a Global Times editor (from Shanghaiist):

The answer is, it’s a spoof column, with full editorial connivance, and was intended to amuse as well as gull a few “Western” readers who’ll believe either a) any mad crap a Chinese commentator says or b) failing that, that the Chinese are incapable of humour or being “in on it” and therefore must be having a prank played on them. Either view is patronizing and/or offensive, I think you’d agree but - even if you don’t - in this case, you’re wrong.

Kenneth Tan's response to the above was essentially: we're just a blog, don't get mad at us.

But Kenneth, you're a blog of some repute, and even after the joke was explained, the best you could offer in reply was a defensive-sounding, "Yes, it didn't quite cross our minds that your bosses were in on the joke. But seriously, can you blame us for that? Have you read some of the jackshit that's published on the other pages of your paper?" You're not necessary wrong for not assuming the best in people, but your tone conveys a strange lack of awareness of who the enemy is -- if there is one.

The other things you say -- which I'll spare you the humiliation of re-reading on this blog -- sound even more defensive. You're the Shanghaiist. You probably blog out of an office -- unlike me, I'm blogging in my pajamas right now. You have influence. Act like it.

And here's al-Jazeera's Melissa Chan: "And so The Global Times editors signed off on a piece ostensibly about Charlie Sheen, probably believed there was some merit to the argument for Eastern values, recognised the reality of how business and mistresses are dealt with in China -- and in doing so, published a piece that was also mocking The Global Times itself."

I learned my lesson a while back with Alessandro: don't assume. In this case, don't assume that Chinese people don't "get the joke." And certainly don't conflate, as people are wont to do, the dispassionate and seemingly unbreakable veneer of the authoritarian government that controls China with the people who inhabit this country. It's one thing to say the government doesn't like joshing around -- though didn't Wikileaks show us the goal of international diplomacy for basically every country is to establish as elaborate a facade as possible? -- but it's another to say that the Chinese just don't "get" it.

Alas, I fear if we delve further, we're going to lose some readers. As Thomas Roche of Techyum puts it in a good but sorta roundabout piece: somehow we've reached the stage of "a hoax within a hoax within a hoax." And that's not a good place to be.

Try as I might, I can't really angry at any one person. But I'm going to use Melissa as an illustrative case here. The target of the satire was not the U.S. It wasn't China, really. It was ... you ready for this, Melissa Chan? ... YOU! (I'm channeling the spirit of Time, please excuse me.) YOU, Melissa Chan! I think balloons are falling from the rafters! Confetti is rocketing up to meet them in starbursts of color! The lights are flashing, Melissa, the lights, the hot lights of fame and glory!!! You are winning!

A friendly note to China's censors

You're fucking around with our VPNs now, are you, you slimy pouches of rat shit? I don't really know how to communicate with you right now. I want to take the nastiest, runtiest, cum-filled-est pair of screwdrivers and shove 'em in your eye sockets. I want to find the most oft-used and least-cleaned douches from the fattest, smelliest, foulest cunts -- basically your daughters' -- and jam 'em up your nostrils that have been cut open by a blunt Swiss army knife. I want to break a bottle of beer over your head and castrate what little of your dick I can find with a microscope and then jam that microscope so far up your ass that your poop reeks of the spirit of Robert Hooke, and then ...

...whoa, okay, I blacked out momentarily there ... hang on...

OK I'm back. I want to hit you in the back of the head with a baseball bat. Yes, I'm borrowing imagery from a Tarantino film, that's how mad I am. So how should we talk? Over tea, you maggot-brained lard-loving swill fuck?

My anger for you knows no bounds. I will kill you, motherfucker.

More satire than satire

(Paraphrasing Rob Zombie in the title, I think...)



From our favorite news site, People's Daily.

HT: Laura Fitch

Bigger space at Kro's Nest for trivia Thursdays

If you haven't checked it out yet -- or even if you have, because you haven't quite seen it like this -- trivia night at Kro's Nest is going to be better than ever tonight (Thursday) starting at 8 pm. Jim and I are in the back room, which is a much better layout. More teams, more fun.

If you happen to attend because you heard about it from here, do make sure to introduce yourself.

Bye, YouTube

And gchat's been sporadic for many days now. VPN, I hang to you with the last fibers of my soul.

UPDATE, 3/11: Well, I think YouTube is back, but Witopia is gone ...

NOT. Witopia, of course, is much more agile than China's Net nannies. I was angry for a while. Then I decided to contact Witopia and get everything sorted out. There is a workaround for every China problem.

Welcome back, YouTube

Now if they'll unblock Blogger, my life will be complete slightly easier.

Chinese police and Western media dance at Wangfujing

This is very cute. On one side, state police, like school girls wearing bonnets waiting for their young knights; on the other, Western media types, horny and hormonal and needing but a little punch to work up the nerve to approach. All to the backdrop of Wangfujing, where soirees are are often attended by the grand duchess herself.

There was no revolution, but you know this already. By now -- if you've been in China for any length of time -- you understand that no one cares about these sort of things, by and large. But the police showed up in force, because you can't be too careful in either sex or statecraft, and the Western media types lived up to their reputation. Consider the rabble roused. Perhaps next time ... smile?

The only losers here? As Adrienne Mong of MSN reports:

Ordinary Chinese were bewildered. “What’s going on? Why can’t we walk here?” they asked.

Some were more belligerent. One woman started shouting, “Why can’t I go down here? Why are you stopping me? Stop pushing.”

The consumers, who only wanted to spend a few hundred kuai and be on their way. But, again, you know this, too: consumers rule China.

Well done, everyone. Well fucking done.

Meanwhile, Chinese Internet buzzes over Richard Li and Isabella Leong.

Cataclysm around the corner

Twenty-six. Last day of 2011's February. Late afternoon sun mere tarnished coin in a sky half-baked, as if an artist ran out of colors, as if a patient dropped his coveralls with a shrug and stepped into the light; redolent of autumn; redolent of infatuation, somehow. I don't dare say love.

Change is about us, a thing arriving like a long-expected house guest. We must embrace. We must accept one another though we are unsure whether to trust. I am sure we will never love. The ones we love are on their way out, to make way for these strangers. The rules will soon be theirs, as it was once ours.

Old men hobble on crutches. Women tote groceries forever up and down a weatherbeaten stairwell that could survive nuclear winter. One day, the days will become unrecognizable. One day we will debouch into the light and everything will be different, as if a great elemental spirit had swept his hand across our landscapes and our homes with their manicured lawns and our yawning high-rises and precious dams with the intent of starting anew, leaving nothing but the attar of nostalgia. Spring, perhaps. Surely spring.

Except this day, as clear as ever: a final day of a second month, redolent of autumn. You can sense it in the air. You can almost hold it for it has shape, it has texture; it circulates within us, breathed out in shared breaths.

Around the corner I see him, plain and recognizable as ever. Change. He extends his hand. We awkwardly hug. I know why you're here, I tell him. I know what you have come to do. He only smiles, that smile of perpetual understanding, of knowing he will outlive your son, your father; the smile one might give to a sufferer of terminal cancer. No trace of mocking. Do not mock me, I tell him nonetheless.

We walk briefly, though at any moment he is liable to disappear. Busy, he says. You understand, I hope. I tell him I do not understand much these days, perhaps nothing. Nothing feels right. Nothing feels permanent. There is nothing to hold, nothing to look forward to. Have you considered Buddhism? he asks me. Smile smaller. I remind him again to not mock me, though I say it teasingly.

He asks me what I want, and I tell him: just this day. Just let me have this day. I renounce these things, I say: these places people go, these stubs of hair on the collar of that man on the elevator, back from the barbershop. I renounce all my possessions, even that which I do not possess, the people I cannot possibly love, who cannot love me. I am renunciate, I am the elements. As I say this, it becomes apparent that I am no longer speaking, that my words have broken down beyond its smallest parts, the moneme atomized; I am communicating directly. I am a shaobing proprietor from Shanxi who cooks eggs and chicken meat over a hotplate; I am a man swerving to avoid a fellow biker; I am a foreigner rejoicing at finding Franziskaner at the local bodega; I am a salty youth in the torpor and ardor of my best days.

Trees reaching toward the waning light like supplicants. Beaks of birds desperate to start their journey. If only they knew the plushness of spring, the desolation of winter. I reach out and tell him -- I tell them many, many things, so quickly and thoroughly that there cannot be any language to translate what was said. They are unlikely to understand, but that does not matter. They search for the antonym of abandonment, an undo for renunciation. I see them stretching across the sky, the last one trailing slightly but keeping pace.

Who owns this day? Who can shake this cheeseparing owner of day by the cuff, rob it of its last penny so our journeys are halted... -- for just one day, one hour? Pardon me for wanting to be together.

I slowly fade back into the world. I am on my bike now. I am biking against traffic, toward home. Change has disappeared, though I know it is just around the corner, as surely as the sun. I am a speeding locomotive. I am watching on the platform, and it is too fast but I fling myself at it. A cataclysm is around the corner, or maybe it isn't.

After this day, nothing will be the same. Thus it is decreed -- and so it shall be, on this finest of days, redolent of autumn.

LinkedIn blocked, then unblocked

Gone Thursday, back Friday. Nothing like a state nanny who can't make up her mind. Gotta love these cum whores.

Forbes:

If LinkedIn has committed a Web 2.0 crime in China’s eyes, there are a couple possibilities: the most likely issue, given Beijing’s desire to quash organizing of any form, is that there have been attempts by Jasmine organizers to reach out to others over LinkedIn, thus spreading the word via LinkedIn invitations; another issue, raised by Techrice, is the built-in ability to post to Twitter via LinkedIn, getting around the Great Firewall without the need for circumvention tools. As Techrice notes, “being the easiest way to tweet is a lousy government relations strategy in China.”

Murong Xuecun, new hero

Joining Yang Youde.

Just read this.

There are journalists here, and perhaps some others, who may report later that I have delivered an angry speech. Well, I am not angry; I am just describing my situation, because I believe it is certainly not just my situation, but the situation faced by all of China's writers. And the fear I feel is not just the fear felt by one writer, but by all of our writers.

I'm angry.

An "ad" for Blue Ocean Network that has since been taken down

Originally posted on the Beijinger by what we can only guess was a disgruntled former employee:

Are you a savvy businessperson or a creative visionary? Neither? Well you've come on the right place! BON TV otherwise known as Blue Ocean Network is launching a search for a new executive managers. If you have the skill, desire and experience manage the programming output of an English-language international television network, please contact us, because at this point, we are trouble. We have a very difficult time maintaing staff because foreigners just don't like us that much. This is tough because we r trying to make cool shows for africans and white people for watching. Let me make this clear, we really need help asap and this is a great opportunity for anyone in between jobs or for recently graduated students who may or may not be interested in television. We are just looking for a caucasiod. Last 2 programming managers cancelled their position left company withinside of 2 months.

You can come for tyring start new shows. But we can't pay while you try to start and if no starting then no pay. oNly pay for minutes on tv! but if you have good ideas on new shows you can surely success!

Most of our programs are commercials. We find a sponsor to pay a program and to pay our salories and then we try to produce the program for least money. u can see samples shows at www.bonlive.com . Less jonalism and more business.

We are wanting a Head of Network Programming to successfully makes and schedule our showss for broadcast internationally. If you are the one for this management roll, keep reading.

Essential Skills and Experience:
1. Excellent understanding that network television is a business like any other. (not too much money for show more for making us)
2. Excellent understanding that TV networks compete with each other, across multiple media delivery platforms. (but hrad because very little editorial credability)
3. Develop channel across multiple formats internationally (we make phone vidoes!)
4. Determine and improve audience ratings for market segments and geographic locations. (haven't done this yet)
5. Gauge constantly shifting and fragmented audience tastes to build a morning, daytime and primetime TV schedule that draws the most viewers possible. (:))
6. Detailed understanding of business benefits of streaming video technologies and mobile devices
Description of this channel development and scheduling role:
1. Identify good show ideas and generally supervise concept to debut processes. (we can't pay for this)
2. Analyze and report past ratings successes and failures to figure out the best time of year to launch a new show. (raitings not have now)

Salary: exuberant;
Start Date: Immediate, our last 2 quit very recenty
Working Hours: Full-time (8-8pm) and occasional weekend hours
Language Skills: Some spoken Mandarin Chinese would be an advantage
The start date of this role is immediate and coincides with new channel launches in Spring 2011 on various cable, IPTV and satellite networks in North America and Asia. If you feel you qualify to take this role on, please send us your resume, and cover letter explain why you feel you are the best candidate for this role. We will contact suitable candidates for interview.
Email: recruitment@bon.tv
Tel: +86 (10) 65588181
Thank you.

I remember my days interning at BON. The staff was ... hard-working. But I knew it wasn't going to work when they made me do daily afternoon exercises.

POSTSCRIPT: If you must have a look at the original page, here it is from Google's cache.

Aw, how nice of Google

Happy Lantern Festival, everyone.

Pretty hot

From Ministry of Tofu... ignore the part about offending many Chinese.

In a nutshell, everything that's wrong about the Chinese education system

Methinks there's something wrong with this picture... here are three paragraphs, successively, from China Daily about an 18-year-old student's college entrance exam essay, which was written in classical Han Chinese:

[Scholar of classical literature] Wu [Xinjiang] later told the media that Wang's writing skills were good enough for a postgraduate student of classical literature.

Despite a lack of original thought or deep insight, Wang's essay was widely circulated on the Internet over the past couple of weeks.

It has also won him admission into the prestigious Southeast University in Nanjing as an undergraduate student of civil engineering, a subject he wished to pursue.

If civil engineering is his passion, then by all means, good luck to him. Wang sounds like a good student, despite the lack of originality (somewhat a problem that can be corrected over time). The literature department of some poor college surely misses him.

Xinhua: "Two people were killed and 223 have been injured"

By fireworks.

Read here.

Video of the 2009 fireworks display here, and 2010 here.

This deserves respectful applause

CCTV's Spring Gala usually serves up a full heaping of ridiculousness -- like this from last year -- but this year it's the Beijing Television (BTV) Spring Festival Gala that takes home the prize. HT: Shanghaiist:

Fireworks in Hong Kong last night

I have more to say about this soon, but for now:

Spring Festival rave

No, not really. China Smack brings you pictures of the Spring Festival rush.

In one of the pictures, a man is being stuffed through the window of a train. In Zhangjiakou last year for Spring Festival, this almost happened to me. Two train attendants were seriously considering propping me up and putting me through the window, until they actually considered that the window was ajar barely half a meter from the top.

Shanzai FAIL

WSJ:

In a development that could further inflame Hollywood’s frustrations with unauthorized reproduction of its intellectual property in China, Chinese netizens are accusing CCTV of repurposing footage from the movie “Top Gun” for use in a news story about an air force training exercise.

Wall Street Journal again reveals its startling inability to grasp the point when it says the incident may "further inflame Hollywood's frustrations with unauthorized reproduction of its intellectual property" (though I'm holding out hope that the writer was being very cheeky there). Here's a bit of advice, WSJ: you can see more of the world if you hold the mirror away from your rectum. Because I'm pretty sure if anything, Hollywood's laughing its ass off because THE GOVERNMENT OF A SUPERPOWER JUST BORROWED A CLIP FROM ONE OF ITS MOVIES AND TRIED TO PASS IT OFF AS ORIGINAL FOOTAGE.

Footage, mind you, ostensibly aimed at showing China's power in the form of military might.

This after high-level denunciations of fake news, by the way.

This, with the eyes of the world's media still on China because of President Hu's trip (google "Top Gun China" and see how many media outlets from near and far have picked up this story).

I am stunned and happy and so, so entertained.

There is something sublimely funny and revelatory about this incident. We all know or strongly suspect that there are scores of people within the Chinese government who are holdovers from a vastly different era, an upside-down world of anti-rightist campaigns in which ineptitude was rewarded and common sense massacred. But to see these nitwits smoke themselves out, inadvertently, using the tools of our digital age, well, it's almost enough to make me weep out of some strange mixture of joy and relief, as if: Okay, so naivete can survive, like a cockroach in nuclear winter, in the highest organs of statecraft. Somehow I see this as a validation of the human spirit, those pulpy and sentimental parts of us that are fallible and wistful and capable of expressing our love for a 1980s Hollywood blockbuster in truly the most spectacular and ingenious of fashions. May you never change, CCP. God bless you.

An environmental parable, revised

This post is otherwise known as your daily dose of cynicism.

An ancient Chinese fable from a compilation by K.L. Kiu, who also translated this (I've taken the liberty to correct the [sic]'s):

"The Art of Stealing"

The Guo family in the state of Qi was very rich while the Xiang family in the state of Song was very poor. Mr. Xiang went to Qi from Song to learn from Mr. Guo how to become wealthy.

"I am very good at stealing," said Mr. Guo. "After I became a thief, I managed to support myself after one year. In two years' time I was comfortably off. After three years I owned lots of land and my barns were all full. From then onwards I could afford to give to the needy and I helped many friends and neighbors."

Mr. Xiang was delighted. He took in Mr. Guo's remark about stealing without understanding how one should go about it. Therefore, he scaled walls and bore holes to get into houses. He took everything his eyes could see or his hands could reach. After a little while, he was convicted of theft and the inheritance left by his ancestors was confiscated.

Mr. Xiang was of the opinion that Mr. Guo had deceived him so he went to see Mr. Guo in order to put the blame on him.

"How did you steal?" asked Mr. Guo.

Mr. Xiang gave him an account of what he did.

"Oh dear!" said Mr. Guo. "You have totally missed the point of what I meant by stealing. I'll explain what I mean. I heard that Nature has seasonal changes and Earth produce fair crops. I steal from Nature's seasons and Earth's produce: clouds and rain give abundant moisture while hills and ponds supply other rich yields. With these I nurture my grain, plant my crops, put up my walls and build my houses. On land I steal birds and animals and at sea I steal fish and turtles. Everything is stolen, for grain, crops, earth, trees, birds, animals, fish and turtles are all products of Nature. Which of these belong to me? But when I steal from Nature, I do not get into trouble. Now precious stones, treasures, provisions, silks, money and goods are things that are amassed by men. They are not the gifts of Nature. If you steal such things and get convicted who can you blame?" --Liezi

Obviously this fable is out of date. Or somewhere along the line -- relatively recently, actually -- this innocuous act of "stealing" from nature turned into a widespread pillaging of it, and we now find ourselves in the unpalatable position of having to punish those who take from nature yet give nothing back.

The above is a Chinese fable, and certainly applies to China, but no Western country is exempt. The consumer society was set into motion half a century ago in the States and it's beginning to tear the country a new asshole. Jeffrey Sachs has a more eloquent description, in which he...

said America’s economic system had corrupted the soul of the country by engineering excess: over-eating, excessive television-watching and material consumption now dominated the lives of millions of Americans. “We designed a kind of society that is designed for addiction,” he said.

“We’re mean. Our politics is mean,” to the rest of the world and to America’s own poor, he said. “We’re an unhappy society amid wealth.”

Yes, when all you care about is the next consumer fix -- the video game, the double-bacon triple-cheeseburger, the candied cumshot of divertissement and dither -- it's tough to focus or think intelligently about the workings of government and media, and it's hard to work up a reasonable amount of anger for Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars. You just go with the flow and find yourself a little worse off the next day.

Sachs was talking specifically about happiness, but the relationship to the environment is all too obvious. A society hellbent on consuming because its identity is entwined with spending power and luxury is a country that will ride the environment like a two-bit mule till it collapses and farts on us all.

For more heady reading about the environment and US-China relations, see: US Department of Energy.

My new hero, Yang Youde

Badass of the Week:

The big shot pompous assholes of SuperMechaCorp Developers offered Youde the Chinese monetary equivalent of about $19,000 for his land, which amounts to roughly one-fifth of what the farm is actually worth. When Youde brought this up in "negotiations", the developers told him that if he didn't agree to it they would send a couple dozen guys to beat the fuck out of him in the hopes that some massive head trauma would help him change his mind. Youde told them to hump a lawnmower.

ESWN:

On May 25, Yang Youde said that several dozen men came armed with shields and helmets behind bulldozers. This time, Yang Youde fired several shots. Before firing, he used a megaphone to declare aloud: "I kept mentioning Document 46 (2009) and the lack of an agreement about the land." At the same time, he yelled, "This is going to cause injuries on both sides." Yang Youde said that he was forced to open fire when the evictors continued to advance.

SMH headline: China farmer uses cannon to fight eviction

NTDTV: a video!

Inaugural Kro's Nest trivia: tonight

Jim and I will be at The Kro's Nest at 35 Xiaoyun Lu tonight (that's Thursday, just to clear up any confusion) from 8 pm onwards hosting Kro's first trivia night. It'll be our first time in action since the Super Quiz and, before that, October 26, at good ol' Souk Lounge (now defunct; the owner's moved to HLG Lounge in Solana; don't bother looking it up, you won't find it; it's in the basement of HLG Club (what?)). It seems like it's been forever since we last did this, but we're all fired up, not to mention fresh as the Steelers defense was in the first half vs. the Jets.

We've gotten some pretty good press recently, such as this endorsement from Kirby Carder on Jim Boyce's blog ("These guys know how to run a trivia contest"). I've put up an ad on the Beijinger and City Weekend with links to China Daily and Global Times' respective reviews of our gig. CD's Lauren Johnson was especially friendly when she described our quiz as "American-centered" (true) before dissing the other quizzes as "European-based, asking questions that deal with football and F1." Football and F1 -- how awful, truly. CW also threw in a nice little compliment when it made us an Editor's Pick:

Test your knowledge of American trivia at Beijing's best pizzeria. Teams of up to six compete for prizes during every round. During the quiz, buy any five beers for just ¥100, and indulge in a post-trivia happy hour that kicks off at 10:30pm.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Geez. That's a lot of self-promotion. I'm going to go scrub myself now.

Poor Freedur

Apparently...

Dear Sir/Madam,

As of 4pm, 26/01/2011, ETM +8, multiple Freedur VPN IPs were blocked in China, resulting in service outage for Freedur users usign the service from mainland China. We have begun the process of changing IP addresses and the servers will be updated as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologize for the service interruption for China users. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding.

Of course the government couldn't have people circumventing Internet restraints AND making political statements about freeing Darfur. Witopia is obviously the way to go.

HT: Robert H.

On state visits and wild boars

• It's always good to get updates from our friends in Taiyuan: From China Smack: Chinese Police With Sticks & Guns vs. Rampaging Wild Boar (the boar does not win)
  
  
• Andy Borowitz:
  
  

  Speaking to the press, Mr. Hu noted the historic nature of his meeting with President Obama: “It was the first time I’d met a Nobel Peace Prize winner who wasn’t in prison.”
  

  
  
• A roundup of late-night jokes about Hu's visit, from Political Irony.
  
  
• Greeting Card for the Year of the Rabbit. [WSJ]
  
  
• Neat and not at all scary: Spokeo. (For more on this, see my buzz in response to Michael Chaitkin and his friends.)
  

An unexpected source of enlightenment

This is probably a fake video -- and it was posted in June, so there really shouldn't be relevance here -- but this rated comment caught my attention:

"the only crime in china is being caught"

Video from this guy.

Traveling by train in China

You might sit (or stand) next to a migrant worker such as Chen Weiwei:


Photo (and story) from China Daily

It would make the trip worth it.

The apparent assault at Shooters last Wednesday

As reported by Global Times:

According to the victim, the incident began in Shooters bar, at the north end of Sanlitun Back Street. The group arrived at approximately 1:30 am with friends, including five local and foreign-born Chinese women.

They entered the bar and another American with them, who also requested anonymity, went to dance with his Chinese girlfriend. He quickly was surrounded by a group of Chinese men, all of whom he estimated to be in their 20s.

When one of the men allegedly smashed a bottle on the victim's head and began to assault him, the women accompanying the group attempted to pull him away. The victim's friends then noticed the scuffle, reclaimed their friend and attempted to leave the bar.

PSAs aren't my thing, but here's my little bit of advice for anyone who just must tussle at Sanlitun: confront foreigners, not locals. Because locals will pull shit like surrounding a cab and smashing in windows with pipes. Meanwhile, you fight a foreigner and what's he going to do, call his embassy? I'd like to hear that conversation.

I'm being tongue-in-cheek, of course (actually, I'm being quite serious, because I understand alcohol + meatheads will balls + lack of sex = shit going down, but whatever). But on a serious note: don't get into fights with Chinese people at Sanlitun. Just don't be that stupid.

A couple friends and I, over the summer, sat outside Smugglers playing dice for two or three hours and saw about four fights. A hefty Chinese dude beat a white guy out of the bar and kept screaming, "This is not your country!" That about sums up the way I think the locals feel when they get drunk and see a bunch of white men doing things like, oh, flirting with their women. It's primeval but not unexpected. My friend and I helped break up one of the fights. And then we saw a Chinese man threaten to beat his Chinese girlfriend, but just as he put his hand up a foreigner went and intervened. That was nice of the foreigner, I think, but then the female goes into a rage and they're both beating on each other and there're hysterics all over, and I'm thinking, What the fuck, I just want to play dice in peace. (No, I wasn't thinking that, but I was playing dice.)

And there was this, of course, two years ago, which was my introduction to Sanlitun as I've come to know it. Kevin and I still think someone died that night.

Weekend links

From CMP (below)

Where I give as many or as few links from this past week or before as I want:

• Let me know if you're heard this one. Three inbreds walk into a press conference... (see above photo). China Media Project on CCP Central Politburo Standing Committee Member Li Changchun (李长春); CCP Central Politburo Member, Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and Central Propaganda Department Minister Liu Yunshan (刘云山); and vice-chairman of the CPPCC, Chen Kuiyuan (陈奎元).
  
• You are not reading enough. Jeffrey Wasserstrom runs down a list of books to keep you occupied through spring festival.
• HT: Seagull Reference. Chinese Etymology.
  
• Hmm. Netizens react to Giffords shooting.
• Uh... what? Modern Lei Feng reports China soccer knocked out of Asian Cup by Uzbekistan.
• Shanghai, but oh well. Inside the Great Firewall.
• Also Shanghai (sigh), also good. Shanghai Shiok.
• Interesting, just found. Seeing Red in China.
  

Abattoir on wheels

Try for a moment to imagine my horror at seeing this last night:



Here's a closer look:


You can't imagine, can you? Because with rare exceptions, none of us have seen a moving murder scene before, or even evidence of a murder.

You can imagine this though: A young man and woman are arguing in a subway, who knows about what. The woman is shrieking hysterical. The man is embarrassed beyond words so he stonewalls her with his stare. And passersby are craning their heads, walking into walls looking at this couple. They make no judgments, they simply stare.

Back at their one-room flat in Shuangjing, just as they get in the door and she's calmed down somewhat, he rips a backhand across her face and says, "Don't you dare embarrass me like that in public." She is stunned momentarily, but she collects her bearings and picks herself up and coos very gently, "What are you going to do, you dickless excuse of a man?" Now this really sets him off. In a huff he's at the kitchen counter -- it's a small room, so he's there in two steps -- and picking up the first blade he sees, a vegetable knife. He pins her against the wall and he's looking at her with crazy eyes and trying his best to act menacing but something in her eyes takes him aback. He hesitates. Of course he has to say something -- his manhood has been challenged -- but suddenly he's lost his will. He offers: "I'm going to cut you, you bitch!"

She laughs at him. Only laughs, nothing more. And he can already feel his blood bubbling over the brim when she then points and laughs at him. So he says, "You think I won't do it? You think I won't?" The blade is right up against her throat now, he has her hand on her chin, and he notices two things just then: the way her eyes have become two-dimensional, all depth risen to the surface like the earliest amphibian testing its legs; and her neck, milky white and hot to the touch. He loses grip of her face. She folds her chin down onto the blade and her eyes go bloodshot.

You don't need me to describe what happens next. He's now the one who's hysterical. Blood's everywhere. Her eyes are still open. He chokes on his breath and can't do anything but scream and scream and scream.

An hour later -- or several hours, who knows anymore -- he collects himself. He wipes the blood from the door so that it doesn't arouse suspicion from passersby. That's what he's thinking: can't let people walking by my door know anything. He realizes what he needs to do: dispose the body.

So he carries her over his shoulder like a hunk of meat to his van and stuffs her in and just starts driving. Just driving. He isn't paying attention, he's just going. And he hits Third Ring Road and there's nasty traffic and he doesn't know why but he's already there, cars in front and behind and to both sides, and what can he do but breathe, just in and out, just stare ahead and breathe and keep driving down this immaculate, newfangled, latter-day city of sinners and saviors and strangers bathed in orange and white, and the smiling pedicab driver, the grizzled chuar dealer, the reptile-skinned canal cleaner, the spectacled office worker, the chubby bus conductor, the well-heeled nightwalker, the bright-eyed bar-hopper, they are all looking at him now, grinning or grimacing or not doing anything, just watching and waiting to see what he will do next because every possibility is open.


The accident on Third Ring Road that caused traffic to get backed up from Hujialou to Guanghua Lu, just south of Guomao. Traffic... sigh.

Amy Chua, this is your child

She's pointing the pious end of a Beretta in your face and probably gurgling in that cute and annoying baby voice of hers, "Eat shit, bitch!," and you know why? Because you seem to think your child is a dog, a thing you dress in a tutu and put on your lap at dinner parties, when in fact she is a perfectly emotional and free-thinking human being who is fully capable of deciding to stick the barrel of a gun in your smug, sanctimonious face.

Let me read back the opening sentence in your Wall Street Journal column:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids.

Do you understand the meaning of "stereotypical"? Consult. I think what you meant to say was:

A lot of people wonder about the stereotype that Chinese parents raise such successful kids.

Because, you see, that might be true. And that might be worthy of investigation in such a fine, tympan-and-daguerreotype paper like the Wall Street Journal. But you choose to set a bare-assed premise that Chinese kids are more "successful" than your white New Haven neighbors, and in doing so you gloss over, well, EVERY FUCKING THING.

Some questions I'm left wondering: do other successful minority groups have this tradition of tough parenting? (Of course not -- they have other stereotypes, don't they?) What are the factors that contribute to immigrant success in America? Are child "prodigies" happy? How does one define "happy"? Are you ashamed of being racist?

And something else: NO. No, people do not sit around thinking about why Asians are more "successful." In the real world -- not your ivory tower called Yale -- they are just as liable to think why David won't ask that girl he stares at all the time on a date, or why John eats alone in the cafeteria, or why Grace went from being a model high school Valedictorian to a raging college slut, and how an entire generation of Chinese Zhous (and Wangs) can do so well on tests but produce no innovative thinkers and why they're so prone to political manipulation.

(See what I did there? I just did what you did. Pretty goddamn awful, isn't it?)

I really hate to inform you of this, Ms. Chua, but the world is not so simple that Sophia playing in Carnegie Hall makes her an unqualified "success." She's good at what she does, I'm sure, but I somehow suspect she would have been fine even without your hormone-induced hissy-fits, or what I can only imagine is your banshee-like voice saying, "Get back to the piano now"; your facile, sort of dangerous worldviews; and your prattle. God, your prattle probably deserves its own fucking level in Hell. You must nag like the violent end of a hose trying to put out a fire. Not to get all nihilistic, but in the end your daughter's still just another piece of human flesh doing a job that will lead to death without 99.99% of the world giving a damn. It's really, really great that you've prepared her so well to face this reality!

And here's the thing, Amy Chua: the way you describe your treatment of your kids is heinous. It's just so mind-boggling that I'm at a loss for words, which is why I'll just quote you:

Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

Jesus William H. Macy Christ, the fucking piano and violin? I'm no criminal profiler, but when I find your body stabbed a hundred times by your daughter, I'm going to guess she's 5'4'', 115 pounds, petite, soft-spoken, straight-haired (shiny black) and single-lidded (thin eyes), has one dimple on her cheek, slightly hunchbacked, chalkboard-chested, likes Margaret Cho, likes reading Melissa De La Cruz, blogs on Xanga, works as a masseuse or someone equally skilled at rubbing one out, carries a kewpie-doll-keychain, is ambitious but understated, loyal but curious, shy but self-assured, and dates white men.

And finally, we get to your conclusion -- which, thankfully, I got to before popping a blood vessel (I probably wouldn't be able to say the same if I had picked up your book): "Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away."

Okay, here -- here, you poor excuse -- you once again do that thing that makes me so mad I have to get crude. (Quick interlude: to preempt any of you amateur psychologists out there who might be smirking at my emotional outburst, I'll put your suspicion to rest: my mom is the exact opposite of this woman, and I was raised in more or less the exact opposite way.) Do not EVER pretend you speak for "the Chinese," you crazy fucking Nazi. You are exactly everything that is wrong with Asian writers. You disgrace us. Please shut up -- and for some poor unborn soul's sake, don't have more children.

HT: Laura Fitch; UPDATE, 1/12, 12:50 pm: Also see: Elaine Chow's post in the Shanghaiist on Monday, and this story about Yin Jianli's book, A Good Mom is Better Than a Good Teacher.

Exposed titty in City Weekend

Because everyone loves these type of blog posts (don't pretend you don't!), I give to you this week's edition of City Weekend's Beijing Seen section. See if you can spot it (apologies for the pretty uneven scan job):



Zooming in ...



And a little more...


Bow-chicka-wow-wow!



...

Er. Yeah. That was totally worth it.

Municipal traffic administration to raise parking fees to 10 yuan starting April 1 in four areas around Third Ring Road

Sweet Almighty God All-Vengeful, Smite These Vile Corrupters At Last And Cleanse Us With Your Blood.

***

In other news, the Beijinger is currently running a contest to "solve the traffic nightmare" (lots of exclamation marks appended). Here's my entry:

I think driving is great. I love driving. Cars are an essential part of civilization, and we should not limit vehicle ownership or license registration if we expect China to be a GREAT COUNTRY. The government should subsidize fuel costs and bring back the tax subsidies for owners of small-engine vehicles, which really pollute less and can fit into tighter spaces so they don't really contribute to any traffic problems. Did you know the invention of the auto-mobile corresponds with the emergence of the awesome Western military-industrial complex? It is sort of like having a gun in your pants. (That is a metaphor.) Sometimes I go home at night and put my car inside my girlfriend. Yes, I have a girlfriend! I love my car.

^^^ …yeah, that needs to change.

Admin didn't understand. Saddy-face.

It did give me the chance -- possibly for the first time ever -- to use the :D emoticon though:

Macaronic gibberish

This is real: bjblcetjsylyxgs.pinsou.com

I would love to hear the internal company discussion that led to the formation of that website. I really cannot fathom. It's like a cat named the thing.

Very interestingly enough, the URL is a dead link if your VPN is on. If it's OFF, however, the wonders of Chinese Internet gobble up that salmagundi and spit this out: http://www.pinsou.com/company/templet/tour001/?bd=108582

Still more interesting, that URL also doesn't work if you have a VPN on. Reverse Great Firewall? (I use a Mac and can't run China Channel, but if someone with that Firefox extension wants to turn on the VPN and turn on China Channel before trying to access the Pinsou link, I'd be very curious to know the results.)

If you were wondering, the site is for Beilecheng Children's Gym, located near Ditan Park (Temple of Earth).

so much depends / upon / a red rain / coat

glazed with rain, etc.

My sincerest apologies to William Carlos Williams.

The big news out of China tonight -- and this is ALL over the motherfucking wires -- is that Chongqing's police are wearing colorful raincoats to "improve their often hard public image."

Like -- sarcasm alert -- in the photo here (below), an AP pic that ran on Yahoo, NPR, et al.



Uh, let's see, what's wrong here... a cop dressed in all black on a fancy, technologically advanced -- I daresay futuristic -- piece of equipment in a picture with a shallow depth of field with the blurred background image being -- well, what the fuck else? -- a portrait of Mao...

Oh.

Great job, Western editor. Bravo. You've conflated "China" with "Chongqing" and in the same fell swoop brought authoritarian imagery to a story about RED FUCKING RAINCOATS. What's that, you're chuckling? Okay, I get it. You were being IRONIC.

You. Are. Such. A. LOUSE.

You know what, on second thought... William Carlos Williams would have given you a goddam standing ovation. Like fitting form to meaning, you've fit an image to the China narrative. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

Why censorship is detrimental, among other reasons

Backdated on January 6.

Because people might miss out on great reads such as these: from China Government Watch, review of Stefan Halper's book, The Beijing Consensus: How China's Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century; quite the discussion over at Peking Duck about "effeminate Asian men" -- question mark -- prompting this comment; well, most things on China Hush, but this line: "social trust will come to extinction down the line"; this bizarro from Danwei; blog that has just come to my attention: Fear of a Red Planet.

Apologies for backdating ... had to do it.

POSTSCRIPT: Sickening; "Villager's Death Ignites Fury in China" [NYT]. Lot of murders recently. Not sure why.