Whoops.

Apparently a factory in Guangdong has been making 'Free Tibet' flags. Whoops.

How Do You Say "Antagonize" in French?

So this is kind of old news now, but it seems like France is really trying to stick it to China. On April 22, Paris has named the Dalai Lama an honourary citizen, just weeks after President Sarkozy threatened to skip the Opening Ceremonies.

I have no real problem with what Paris did...maybe the timing's off, but how often does the Dalai Lama roll through town? Threatening a boycott of the Opening Ceremonies, though, is a little asinine. As mentioned here in Slate Magazine, the Ceremonies aren't really something that world leaders usually attend anyways. At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, for example, Tony Blair was the only leader of the five remaining 2012 host candidate nations to show up. So what Sarkozy did was kind of like saying, "I'm not going to go to the Super Bowl unless America...". Who cares? The Ceremonies don't need you to go ahead, and it's not like you were going to go anyways.

Olympic Protests: Pros and Cons

With the Olympics fast approaching, China's detractors are applying pressure from all sides. But is this the best course of action? The Dream for Darfur people assert in the New York Times that yes, the time is now:

“The Olympics is a unique lever with the Chinese, and we’re not going to get another one — it ain’t happening again.”

-Jill Savitt, Executive Director, Dream for Darfur

On the other hand, the Chinese are obviously not such a big fan of this strategy. The Olympics are their coming-out party, and nobody likes it when others rain on their parade. Simon Elegant, one of Time Asia's reporters, writes about China's "victim mindset" and draws an analogy:

"To highlight these problems in the run up to the Olympics is inappropriate. It’s like on your daughter’s graduation ceremony, one of your friends tries to point out the fact that she is actually three months pregnant and doesn’t know who is the baby’s father."

-Munir Ming

Both have valid points, but I tend to side with the latter view. Let China have its moment, then once it feels accepted as an equal in the international community, make it live up to the responsibilities of its new position.

The Thing About the Chinese...

...is that they love their dogs. This one's wearing a watch.



With dogs on it.

A Visit to Carrefour...

...is not as dangerous in Shanghai as it probably is elsewhere in China. That's a picture of a Carrefour in Hefei last Saturday (April 19th). And here's a picture from outside a Shanghai Carrefour a week later:



Here's inside:


It's by no means empty, but at 6pm on a Friday night, people usually pack the place to get what they need and hurry home for the weekend.

Obviously the week difference between the two scenes makes a difference, but the best test will come next week on May 1st, when the full-out boycott is supposed to start.

Yao Ming Makes His Teammates Better

"I'm much more famous in China than I think I ever was in America, which is kind of cool."

-Shane Battier

Was just talking to a local here about the Olympics and the US basketball team today. We were going through all the stars that might be coming, like LeBron, Kobe, Chris Paul, Duncan, Amare Stoudemire and Dwight Howard. All exciting stuff for the Chinese, since All-Stars don't ever come to China. Then he dropped Shane Battier into the conversation. And don't get me wrong, Battier's a solid player, but he's not anywhere near the top tier of NBA players. On his own team, he's maybe the 3rd best player. But because he plays with Yao, he's got a US $4 million endorsement deal with PEAK shoes, his own clothing line and a TV ad that comes on twice during every NBA commercial break here.

PEAK is China's biggest shoe manufacturer, but it has absolutely no presence outside the country. That's even reflected in Battier's contract: should he get traded, the deal gets voided. But PEAK is so invested in him that when his name popped up in trade rumours last year, they sent an executive over just to check on things (he wasn't traded). Makes his possible selection to the Beijing Olympic basketball team a little more interesting, no? His shoes might just give him the edge he needs to make the team.

A Chinese Rebuttal

When we were the Sick Man of Asia, We were called The Yellow Peril.
When we are billed to be the next Superpower, we are called The Threat.
When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
When we embrace Free Trade, You blame us for taking away your jobs.
When we were falling apart, You marched in your troops and wanted your
fair share.
When we tried to put the broken pieces back together again, Free Tibet
you screamed, It Was an Invasion!
When tried Communism, you hated us for being Communist.
When we embrace Capitalism, you hate us for being Capitalist.
When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we abused human rights.
When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your national debts.
When we build our industries, you call us Polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.
When we buy oil, you call it exploitation and genocide.
When you go to war for oil, you call it liberation.
When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you demanded rules of law.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it violating
human rights.
When we were silent, you said you wanted us to have free speech.
When we are silent no more, you say we are brainwashed-xenophobics.
Why do you hate us so much, we asked.
No, you answered, we don't hate you.
We don't hate you either,
But, do you understand us?
Of course we do, you said,
We have AFP, CNN and BBC's...
What do you really want from us?
Think hard first, then answer...
Because you only get so many chances.
Enough is Enough, Enough Hypocrisy for This One World.
We want One World, One Dream, and Peace on Earth.
This Big Blue Earth is Big Enough for all of Us.

A translation of a poem that has been making the email rounds. Obviously biased, but it's hard to dismiss it completely. Some valid points in there.

Update: Just found a better/more complete translation in the Washington Post, so I replaced the original.

I Heart China!

The French Government is about to give Carrefour $20,000,000 USD to make it possible for Carrefours to have a big sale on May 1st [a national holiday]. Carrefour itself is budgeting US$5,000,000 for this sale. The purpose is to attract many many Chinese people to Carrefours on May 1st; better still, they hope a few Chinese would be trampled to death and it would make big world news. The French media is eagerly getting ready for the May 1st sale event at Carrefours. They hope to capture the crazy Chinese shoppers' ugly images to broadcast to the world [to show the world that the Chinese people cannot boycott Carrefours like they say they would].

If you are patriotic, please pass this message onto your friends and relatives and do not shop at Carrefours. Don't make Chinese people lose face, lose dignity, lose nationalism for some bargain so the foreigners can laugh at us. Although we don't count much individually, if we unite, we will show the foreign powers what we are.

Those with a conscience will forward this message to 10 people; those patriotic ones will forward this message to 50 people.

That's a loose translation of an email I got from a co-worker here. The Chinese have been boycotting Carrefour for most of the past week, due largely to the Olympic protests that were staged in Paris.

I was also sent this little cartoon. Not especially complicated...two guys are talking, one says he went to Carrefour so the other goes Chuck Norris on him.

Judging from the conversations that I've had with locals, these Olympic protests are being taken pretty personally. These upcoming Games have long been billed as China's coming out party, and the Chinese feel that everyone's just using this chance to dump on them. The national pride has come out in a few different ways, from the boycotts to protests of the French embassy to people simply changing their MSN names to include "I love China" in them. The government's keeping a close eye on all of it.

It'll be interesting to see how big a role the internet will play in all of this. China hasn't had a controversy of this size since the internet really took off; people can now get and pass along much more information away from the government's prying eyes. Take this skirmish with France, for example. The government, through the country's news outlets, really downplayed the protests in Paris; some reports even said that having the torch go out was part of the plan. And yet, people have somehow squirreled out enough information about what really happened to start emails chains and organize a boycott. China will have to work harder, or at least differently, to make sure people don't stray from the company line too much.

Update: Whoops, there were protests here against Japan in April 2005. The government made it illegal to organize protests using cell phones or emails, and even texted people to tell them so (link). Will that be enough this time around? Cell phones and emails have only gotten more popular in the last 3 years...

"I'm Debating on the Internet!"

5 posts, 4 Hitler/Nazi references. Seemed relevant.

Nazis Welcome World In for Beijing Olympics

"I absolutely 100 percent think it [the Beijing Olympics] compares to the Berlin Olympics in 1936."

-Rob Anders, Conservative MP (Calgary West)

Pretty sensationalist. And also pretty irresponsible (full story). Anders is referring to the fact that Falun Gong practitioners will not be able to participate in the Olympics (much as Jews were excluded from the Nazi-led 1936 Olympics). But to draw parallels between the two events in such a general way is pretty unfair. That's like saying that Anders wants to be Time Magazine's Man of the Year so that he can be viewed in the same light as other winners like Hitler and Stalin.

In related news, Anders also once called Nelson Mandela "a communist and a terrorist".

For the record, Falun Gong is a quasi-Buddhist religion that was outlawed by China in 1999, forcing its founder and leader, Li Hongzhi, to flee to New York. It has a pretty good following around the world, but some people see it as more of a cult than anything else (including, obviously, the Chinese government). That might have something to do with Li's assertions that aliens walk among us and "already control man" through science. I think Li Hongzhi, translated loosely, is either "Tom Cruise" or "L. Ron Hubbard".

"Goons and Thugs"

C'mon, Jack, tell us what you really think. I don't really have much to say about this, but clearly this goes beyond the bounds of "normal" political commentary.

What makes it more pathetic is CNN's apology.

“It was not Mr. Cafferty’s nor CNN’s intent to cause offence to the Chinese people, and we would apologise to anyone who has interpreted the comments in this way."

-CNN

Apparently, Cafferty was only referring to the Chinese government when he said "goons and thugs". But isn't that beside the point? Shouldn't the apology be a much more general "we're sorry for anything that was said that was at all offensive"? Imagine the outrage that would come out of America if the tables were turned.

This seems as good a time as any to reference this well thought-out (and ultimately prophetic) article by Simon Barnes in last Friday's London Times. It's the best and most introspective piece I've read so far on anti-Chinese sentiments coming out of the West.

Update: China isn't a big fan of the apology. Link here.

Letting the Dust Settle

That's a clear vs. smoggy day picture of Beijing, and with 4 months left until the Olympics, the government is putting all construction projects on hold to help try and clear the air for the event. They've also told steel, power and other "dirty" industries to cut back production in the coming weeks, and have even planned it so that by now, almost all of the Olympic construction is already done. China is, very literally, letting the dust settle in an attempt to pretty up the city. Incredible. The New York Times has the story here.

Passing the Torch

A few random notes about the Olympic Torch now that it's going on it's worldwide tour:

• There's a Sacred Flame Protection Unit of the Chinese People's Armed Police (seriously). Those are the Chinese cops following the flame everywhere and jumping on protesters.

• The international torch relay was started by the Nazis in 1936 for the Berlin Olympics. They thought it would look good in some of their "promotional" videos.

• During the course of the torch relay, the flame will travel some 50,000 miles, plus another 35,000 miles when it goes around China en route to Beijing. And according to wired.com, all that traveling adds up to 462,400 gallons of jet fuel and over 11 million pounds of carbon emissions. That's as much greenhouse gas as 153 Americans (or 624 Chinese) put out in a year (calculated here). Not so good considering Beijing is calling this the "Green Olympics". Then again, this whole thing as much the IOC's (and Hitler's) idea than it is China's. Maybe it's good that they're thinking of canceling this in future years.
  

Me Love You Longtang

Shanghai is China's most progressive and westernized city, so if you want to see "real China" this is not really the best place to go. The city runs at a frenetic pace; construction sites and traffic jams wrap themselves around the people and run 24 hours a day. But you can still find glimpses of what Shanghai used to be like in little nooks and crannies around town, most notably in the old residential neighbourhoods called longtangs (弄堂).


These longtangs aren't readily advertised in tourist guides or websites, but if you can find time to visit one, you get to see a completely different side of Shanghai. These closed-off areas can hold hundreds upon hundreds of two-story townhouses, all packed into small blocks by tight alleyways that run off the main "street". At one point in the 1940's, these housing tracts were so popular that they housed 80% of the city's population.

With cars and construction no longer a concern, everything goes at a slower pace here. You can find people are outside fixing their bikes, playing cards, or just chatting with friends. Peek inside the apartments and you can see men sitting at mahjong tables and hear them trash-talking each other or telling jokes loudly. Even on the emptier alleys you can get a sense of neighbourhood that is usually lost in large cities like Shanghai.













Each house is known as a shikumen (石库门), literally "stone gate", because the entrances are usually just facades used to hide small courtyards.













But it's hard to hide just how packed these places are. Apparently it's not uncommon for the shikumen owner to sublet his own place, splitting the central room into two (or more) rooms to accommodate a second family of tenants. It's kinda like renting out your basement, if your basement was the other half of your living room.