Shanghai China Snippets Observations about living in Shanghai and China in general

The Chinese blogosphere has been tortured lately with some heated debates about China bashing, Japan bashing, foreigner bashing and whatever lays ready to bash. It all started so innocent.

A remark by the author of the Horse’s Mouth about the poor usage of the English language in the People’s Daily upset the Chinese blogger Bingfeng so much that he started shouting about China bashing. Very amusing and sweet to read.

My take: I totally agree with mister Bingfeng. It’s ridiculous to even assume that somebody writing for the English version of the People’s Daily should be capable to write.. proper English. In fact it is a blessing in disguise. Would it be written better, I might start to believe it.

Another hot thing these days is the usage of the word “d*******y” in the Chinese version of Spaces. Spaces is a copycat of Blogger and the likes that offer the not-too-technical web citizens the chance to occupy some virtual property. With the help of some simplified software they then can start to write on the web what they normally would only have shared with the fixed version of their diary. A sweet Microsoft longtime blogger who felt the need to give his opinion stirred the pot a bit more. Today he came to the conclusion that in hindsight he should have stayed out of it. That last part gives him credit. In between an apparent voice on these kind of things gave the Microsoft blogger a good bashing. Maybe that and the opinions of some other people made him to say.. well, see before. It gets confusing as there seems to much bashing anyway so I’ll wrap it up with my take on it.

Microsoft is a company that wants to make money, lots of money. To make a lot of money means you have to adjust yourself to your clients, understand the laws of the clients and please the clients by thinking ahead regarding possible laws that may or may not ever materialize. So yeah, they filter a bit, according to one for the fellows who works at the spaces, but that’s okay.

As always, in all the above-mentioned links the comment sections are the best part.

I was reading yesterday’s Hong Kong Standard when I came across this picture. The caption read “Presidents George W. Bush and Hu Jintao chat during a wreath laying ceremony at the Unknown Soldier Tomb outside the Kremlin wall in Moscow”.

It’s an intriguing photo. Two superpowers measuring eachother face to face it seems. The chatting part I am less sure about as I have never heard Bush speaks mandarin or Hu speaks English. What are they thinking when they look into each other’s eyes? Let me know if you have a clue.

Picture by Chris Myrick

Don’t worry, I won’t try to explain what has been happening over the last couple of weeks regarding the frictions between China and Japan. Others are better at that. Besides, I missed the whole demonstration myself. We asked a taxi driver to take us there and he said it was already over. He lied, we found out later, but then again drinking coffee in the sun is a lot nicer.

I have read almost all blog postings and about every article that Google News told me about. This IHT article , written by Howard W. French sums it up pretty well. Read it, I suggest.

In the back I hear my favorite news channel in China, CCTV International also known as CCTV 9.

They have been going on about the anti-secession law now for about 15 minutes. Three different well-known scholars have explained that the law is peaceful. Overseas Chinese organizations have been quoted as standing firm behind the newly adopted law. It goes on and on. The one thing I wonder about is that this English News Channel is, as far as I think, mostly serving non-Chinese speakers who have access to more sources than only CCTV International.

I have reached my propaganda limit for now. For those of you who like to read what Xinhua News Agency is reporting to the rest of the world I have compiled some links.

Click at random:

• 3 Caribbean countries back China’s anti-secession law (click)
• Overseas Chinese in Latin America back China’s Anti-Secession Law (click)
• Venezuela supports China’s anti-secession law (click)
• Comoros supports China’s Anti-Secession Law (click)

According to Bloomberg
“IBM’s proposed $1.25 billion sale of its personal computer business to
Lenovo Group of China may be held up by U.S. regulators over national
security concerns”. When big takeovers are involved a whole chain of
U.S. regulatory approvals is need before the deal can be effectuated.
Currently the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, or
CFIUS, is making up it’s mind about whether or not the deal poses a
threat. One of the concerns is that Lenovo employees might conduct
industrial espionage.

This may create an interesting political situation. If the
Commitee doesn’t approve before the 29 th of January, another
investigation into the deal must be opened. The only person then to say
Yes or No will be mister Bush himself. The takeover is seen in the
mainland as proof of Chinese development and it’s increasing role in
international business. A lot of face can be lost here.

More sources:

Atimes

This morning I heard on the Dutch news (internet radio) that the former
President of China, Zhao Ziyang, died. In ’89 he was replaced by Jiang Zemin and put under house
arrest because of his soft stance on the student protests.

Chinaherald has
collected a good set of links about his death. It will be interesting
to see and read how the Chinese media will be reporting about this,
either today or later.

After the Tsunami hit South East Asia I have been following the news on
an hourly basis. Partly because of the disastrous impact, partly
because many of the places hit, I visited before. It’s a weird idea
knowing the lodge you once stayed is gone, it’s uncomprehensible to
understand what the people must have gone through. The whole world
seems to be collecting money now to help the victims and I think that’s
great. Goverments are also throwing in their weight by promising money
and even the cynical me should be happy about that.

I am but then again, I am not because apparently most of the money promised never gets there. An article in the Washingtonpost tells that

“The pattern in many previous disasters is not encouraging in that
regard, aid experts said. Governments often pledge huge amounts when
crises are in the headlines and then fail to deliver anywhere near
those sums, they said. An example is the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran,
where officials report that only a small fraction of the more than $1
billion pledged was sent.”

and

“In an apparent reference to that pattern, Louis Michel, the European
Union’s commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, yesterday
warned at a news conference, “We have to be careful and not participate
in a beauty contest where we are competing to give higher figures.”

And this seems to be happening, it becomes a beauty contest. In China
it’s also a power contest. Initially the Chinese government pledged 3
million US. Some time later, after Taiwan pledged 50 million, suddenly
it became 63 million. On TV and in the papers a lot of attention is
giving to all the great contributions of China and it’s people to the
hit countries. Even in my building there is a poster keeping track of
the contributions of the tenants. Mister Wu donated 10 kuai, mister Li
donated 500 kuai. A big picture today of a medical team from Shanghai
that returned from it’s mission to one of the affected countries. They
got a welcome like heroes. Speeches from notaries etc. Nothing wrong
with the fact that Chinese people help, it’s great actually, but using
it too much as a propaganda tool doesn’t seem so appropriate.