"Chinese Sex Toy Market Explodes"

"Neither Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaopeng could have seen the explosion in China'a sex toy industry."

You also get to see awkward Chinese guys discovering what a dildo is.

The Other Side of the Pacific

View Larger Map

Biked from my place to the ocean a few weekends ago...pretty epic day if I say so myself.  Took off around 10:30am and didn't get home until 8pm.  Wasn't straight riding--we stopped for lunch and to relax at the "beach" when we got there--but I figure we spent 6-7 hours on the saddle all in all.

A few pics here...

The rest on Picasa.  (Thanks to Libbie Cohn for the pics...)

Verticality

Moved on from HK yesterday to Taipei, home of the Taipei 101, the world's tallest building.  Still, HK's verticality will be hard to forget.  A small sample of pics:

The IFC, made famous to North Americans in The Dark Knight when Batman kidnaps the Chinese bad guy.

Outside the IFC:

On one of the many skybridges downtown:

In an older area called Soho:

Climbed up to the roof of a nearby building and got some different views:

And one last one from "Sneaker Street", in a shopping area that the government is threatening to tear down to, of course, put up more highrises.

More from Taipei in a bit.

SH vs. HK: The Showdown

Just a few differences I've noticed in my few days here so far...

• Stuff is probably about 1.5x-2x more expensive in HK. My random sample: passport photos from a photo booth: RMB32 vs RMB18. A (very poorly named) sports drink called Pocari Sweat: RM8 vs RMB4.5. Drinks? Depends on the place, but usually in SH you can get 2-for-1 happy hour pints for about RMB40. In HK it's about the same price, but you only get the 333mL bottles.
• Public transport is the biggest killer though. I've used probably RMB150 ($25 CAD) in four days. I took a RMB18 bus ride today; the most I've ever paid for a bus in Shanghai was RMB6, and that only happened once. It's also impossible to get around with a bike in HK.
• On the flip side, the HK metro actually makes money. The Shanghai one almost certainly doesn't.
• Exported stuff is much, much more accessible in HK. There's more selection, and it's all cheaper. For example, Kettle Chips are RMB18 at the supermarket here in HK, but in Shanghai, they're only available at the specialty export food market, and they're RMB40 ($6.50) a bag.
• 911 in North America, 119 in China, 999 in HK.
• Basketball courts aren't always jam-packed here. But everyone still sucks.

Another huge difference, and one I'll explore more tomorrow when I go hiking, is that HK is surrounded by nature. To get out and see some actual trees and forest in Shanghai, you gotta go a couple hours out. In HK, physically a much smaller city, it's just a short metro ride away.

Postscript: One of the few things cheaper (or at least comparable in price) in HK?  McD's.  The difference?  McD's is still somewhat novel to the Chinese, so they can price it at a premium.  Not so much in HK.  It's one of the cheapest meals you can eat (street noodles are a third the price in Shanghai).

A Tale of Two Cities: First Impressions

When I first visited Shanghai, my mom told me the city was "like the New York of China". Psssssh. Like that could even come close to being right. Then I got there. And Shanghai turned out to be like New York, but in China. It's a fashion mecca, a financial capital, playground for the country's rich and famous, and a city with an amazingly rich international history.

*****************

The other Chinese city that's most often compared to New York is Hong Kong. And in a lot of ways that's a good comparison too. Hong Kong's another international financial titan, a hotbed for Asian fashion, and home to a self-created celebrity industry. That's why the two cities are so often compared with each other (though, obbbbbviously, Shanghai is hipper).

I'm in Hong Kong right now, my fourth time here. Usually my trips are fleeting visa visits or just a stop on my way home, so this is the first time I'll get to really explore on my own (I've got a little less than a week). But even with my rather sheltered experience of the city, it's obvious that Hong Kong, despite the structural similarities, is much different in character.

Shanghai is still a city in development--subway lines are still being installed and old neighbourhoods are still in the process of being replaced (for good or worse)--but Hong Kong is already way overdeveloped. Skyscrapers shoot up everywhere around you downtown, and skybridges connect one tower to the next. There are fewer back lanes and hidden corners, and even if you found one, there'd be nothing there. Maybe a bag of garbage or a dirty wall.

Part of Shanghai's charm is the city's barely-hidden "dark side"--the side the government would rather keep out of sight. A friend once mentioned, for example, that Shanghai was the only place she'd been where dark back alleys were beckoning instead of potentially dangerous. Even now, and even in popular downtown areas, you can get a glimpse of "real Shanghai" and the local residents who still haven't quite gotten the full effect of the supposedly quickly rising living standards. The yelling in the streets, the pushing of people everywhere you go, the constant construction, it all adds to the sense of chaos that the city thrives on.

Hong Kong is not at all like that. In Hong Kong, people are "civilized": the ask politely, they wait in lines. And even when it's impossibly busy, things stay under control. It has a sense of refinement that Shanghai's city officials have been trying to emulate for years.

*****************

Really, neither Hong Kong nor Shanghai are perfect comparisons for New York. There is certainly some overlap between all three cities, but they're all cut from a different cloth. The Shanghai-Hong Kong (or is it Hong Kong-Shanghai?) comparison is probably the tightest, though the cities' similarities also seem to accentuate their differences.

Personally, I kinda like to think of Shanghai and Hong Kong as hot girls. Hong Kong's that hot, successful girl with a middle-upper class upbringing, a private school education and family connections, while Shanghai's more like the hot girl that's just broken through and made it big. She's still not quite sure how high her star will rise (or if she'll come crashing back down) and she's got something of a hidden, troubled past, but somehow, that all just seems to add to the charm.

Postscript: I may think differently in a few days when I've explored a little more.

Censored.

20th anniversary of Tiananmen coming up on June 4th...and everything's getting censored right now.  Youtube, Blogspot, Tumblr, Livejournal, Xanga, Wordpress, Friendfeed, Flickr, Microsoft's Live.com and Twitter: all down.

They're even trying to stop newspapers from putting the numbers 6 and 4 together:

On the twentieth anniversary of June 4th, the mainland media are under tremendous pressure from the Publicity Department to screen for any related content to a hitherto unimaginable extent.

According to information, some newspapers have demanded their reporters to use the numbers 6 and 4 in their reports.  Even if they need to cited, they cannot appear simultaneously within the article.  In any case, they definitely cannot be used in the headlines in case the Publicity Department misunderstands.

Last year, there were two instances of June 4th-related incidents.  In the first case, Beijing News published some photos of the work of former Associated Press photographer Liu Heungsing which included a photo of injured persons being taken to the hospital on June 4th.  The other case is when Southern Metropolis Daily reported on unusual weather in Guangdong province with the headline of "4 storms in June."

In both cases, the principals insisted that it was carelessness.  This caused the Publicity Department some headaches because there was no proof that someone was deliberately challenging the central government on its stance.

In order to avoid any embarrassing repeats, certain media have decided to go for the overkill in demanding that reporters and editors avoid the use '6' or '4' during this sensitive period.

According to information, the Internet censorship has clearly intensified.  In the past, netizens can discuss the June 4th incident by butting certain meaning words or symbols between June and 4th to deceive the filtering software.  This method is no longer effective, because even the single mention of either 6 or 4 is enough to arouse scrutiny.  Therefore, the media may not be over-reacting by being allergic to the two numbers.

Many veteran reporters have even decided to go on vacation.  Even if they have an explosive news story on hand, they would rather wait until after June 4th in case the authorities misunderstand that they were trying to cause trouble.

-From Ming Pao, translated by ESWN

I've talked to a few friends and other miscellaneous people about this, and really, there's not a whole lot of awareness.  Some people know what happened on 6/4 (many are younger university graduates) but for the most part the reaction is either "everyone makes mistakes, let's move on" or "I don't really know enough about it to really say anything".  You might as well be asking someone about that time they got drunk and made out with an ugly chick: they admit it happened, but either they don't really know the details or they're uncomfortable about it.  Mostly, they just want to change the subject.

Anyways, point is that the government's done a great job of battening down the hatches and stopping the flow of information.  I'm working off a proxy server right now, so that's why there's no picture for this post (too much hassle) and some of the links might not work (lemme know if they don't). It's been super annoying getting to news about the event, and for some people it's just not going to be worth the effort.

So by and large, in the days leading up to the anniversary of such a landmark moment in history, life has gone on as if nothing ever happened. And scarier still, we're getting cut off from things that are happening right now, like the riots in HK. It's now 20 years later, and the government's still up to their old tricks. And they're still working.

Postscript: There are a whole bunch of "China censorship = China evil" articles floating around, but that's not what I'm trying to get across. Of course I think it's the wrong thing to do, but from my view, the government is mainly concerned with covering its own ass. They fear that if they let this out, the backlash will significantly hurt them--and probably that, after 20 years of covering up, the backlash may even be stronger than it originally would have been. Either way, they've effectively backed themselves into a corner. Let it out and feel the wrath of 1.3 billion angry citizens, or keep it under wraps and let other countries glare at you and say you're evil. Not really a hard choice.

Postscript II: The Chinese government's "Great Firewall" is keenly aware of the power of the internet here: unlike in the Western world, where daily topics get a second life on the internet, many things instead go from the internet to daily life, like the cao ni ma--it started as an inside-joke type video but it's quickly gained hold in the "real" world with t-shirts and dolls.

Copycat Cars

So I've written about copycat cars before, but it hit a whole new level for me when I visited the Shanghai Car Show yesterday.

BYD was the worst.  They ripped off Mazdas, Toyotas, Hondas, even Mercedes:

Bu the worst was the Lamborghini/Ferrari ripoff:

It would be kind of cool if it wasn't so stupid.  And if it didn't serve to stifle creativity.  According to the WSJ,

...his company does no engineering or design work whatsoever. Instead, they tell an outside engineering consultant which existing model they want to copy, and ask them to come up with a product counterfeited in a way that it won’t attract intellectual property lawsuits. In some cases that means companies combining styling ideas from two separate cars into one.

Shouldn't car companies be putting more into R&D than lawyer fees?

Quote of the Day

From Saturday's China Daily:

President Congratulates Kim on Reelection
President Hu Jintao on Friday congratulated Kim Jong-Il, the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), on his reelection as chairman of the country's National Defense Commission.  

Is it really a re-election if you're not running against anyone?

Springfield, China

That's Blinky, the famous fucked-up fish from Springfield's nuclear-waste infected rivers.

That's a pig that was just born in Zhejiang, near Shanghai.

Quote of the Day

"Driving BMWs and drinking polluted water is the bitter irony of our modernization."

-Zhou Shengxian, China's Minister of Environmental Protection

20 Years After...

"Tell the world, they said to us."

This June 4th will mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre/"incident".  And honestly, I can't believe this happened in my lifetime.

Anyways, look for China to up its censorship efforts in the coming months while coverage of the anniversary picks up.  And further, any time there's an anniversary like this (or any other event that protesters may try to use as a stage) China will lock down Tiananmen Square too--a couple weeks ago I had a friend visit Beijing and she couldn't even see the square because the military set up a 2-block buffer zone around it during the National Congress.

Drinking and Ruling

Day and night he drank strong liquor. Everyone from the aristocratic high officials to his own lowly clerks and retainers saw that Shen did not carry out his. duties. Everyone who came wanted to speak with him about it, but when they arrived Shen always offered them a cup of strong liquor. When, after a short while, they said they had something to say, he offered them more. Only once they were drunk did they leave, having spent the whole time unable to bring up the subject.

-Han Dynasty chancellor Cao Shen

Found that on Froginawall.net

Das Kapital: Coming Soon to an Opera Near You!

Well, it's not really an opera, per se. It will, apparently, take elements both from Broadway musicals and Las Vegas shows as well. But yes, it will be about Marx's ever-popular 1,000 page treatise on Communism. And no, they're not going to be taking any "artistic liberties".

The show, whatever type of show it ends up being, will be directed by He Nian, and will be thoroughly vetted by Zhang Jun, an economics professor at Fudan University, before it's released to the proles. The story, actually adapted from a Manga comic about Marx's masterpiece, will revolve around a company where the workers come to realize that they're being taken advantage of by their boss. This inevitably divides the factory into different factions, with some continuing to work while others rebel or take to collective bargaining efforts. In the end, of course, they all learn to embrace Marx's theory of surplus value.

A German troupe tried something similar three years ago--they even gave out volumes of The Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels at their shows--but it ultimately failed because (surprise, surprise) it was deemed to be too boring. According to He, however, this rendition will be "fun to watch".

It's not quite clear whether the show's 2010 debut will be in Shanghai or Beijing, but if you ask me, it'll be worth seeing either way.

Dirty Dirty China

Another video showing just how shitty working conditions are in China. The only thing worse than this is this 6-part mini-series by VBS TV on Linfen, the "world's most polluted town".

The Legend of the Grass Mud Horse

Reinforcements have arrived for Chinese netizens in their fight against the censorship efforts of the government...in the form of a mythical creature known only as the "Grass Mud Horse" (草泥马/cǎonǐmǎ). Originally conceived some two months ago by some anonymous party, the video has now drawn over 1.5 million hits on YouTube--and spawned countless other spinoffs, including t-shirts, dolls and other follow-ups like this cartoon rap.

Those of you with a basic knowledge of Chinese (or at least Chinese swear words) will quickly recognize that "caonima" is a homonym for "F*** your mother". The video, however, expands on the concept and tells of how these "fun-loving and nimble" horses fight to keep a horde of river crabs (河蟹/héxiè, a homonym for "harmony", the Chinese euphemism for censorship) out of their home territory, the Ma Le Desert (马勒戈壁/mǎlègēbì, a homonym for "Your Mother's C***").

The entire thing is simply meant to poke fun at the government's continued efforts to censor the internet, but according to Xiao Qiang, a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, the Grass Mud Horse “has become an icon of resistance to censorship.”

The expression and cartoon videos may seem like a juvenile response to an unreasonable rule. But the fact that the vast online population has joined the chorus, from serious scholars to usually politically apathetic urban white-collar workers, shows how strongly this expression resonates.

Cui Weiping, a prominent blogger and professor at the Beijing Film Academy, adds,

As for “Grass Mud Horse”, I applaud the one who invented such a pun. Its underlining tone is: I know you do not allow me to say certain things...So, I say “Grass Mud Horse”, not "f*** your mom". What is “Grass Mud Horse”? It always works hard in harsh conditions. See, it is from the vast grassland. I like it. I love it. This whole thing is too far away from you [the government], out of your jurisdiction. Oh well, why are you always staring at me? Am I not perfectly fine? I am innocent. I have not been snatched away by some crooked folks. I have not been put under their control. And I am not vulgar. Why do you have to worry so much about me?

I am singing a cute children’s song – I AM A GRASS MUD HORSE!

Update: Apparently there are two CaoNiMa's, MaLe and GeBi.  And their offspring is called FaKeNiMa (NiMa sounds like "your mother" in Chinese).  More from Shanghaiist .

ap·pre·ci·ate

One of the things that I appreciate about Canada is daylight savings time. (The "spring forward" part of it anyways.) The end of winter is always kinda nebulous, and that extra hour really kicks it into spring...there's always a kind of a "worst is over" kind of feeling.

But anyways, there is no daylight savings time in China. In fact, there's no time changing anywhere anytime in this Country. Physically, China is almost 4 time zones wide . But the entire thing runs under Beijing time. It makes things a little more uniform, but it also makes for a couple weird quirks.

For one, when I visited Yunnan (2 time zones away) in February, the sun rose at around 7:30 every day...that was nice.  You could wake up at a reasonable time every day at daybreak and feel like a champion.

On the other hand though, 3 hours makes things a real hassle if you live in the westernmost parts of China.  Xinjiang, the province in the NW corner of the country, has actually adopted an unofficial "Xinjiang time", three hours behind Beijing time.  So if you're ever traveling around there and booking train tickets or whatnot, you really got double check and be sure whether the time you're getting quoted is in Beijing or Xinjiang time.  (P.S. Xinjiang also kind of wants out of China so the whole "having our own time zone" thing is also another way to shove it in the government's face.)

Better City, Better Life

417 days to go until the 2010 Shanghai Expo, and I saw this today switching lines on the Metro:

Basically they've dressed guy up in an "Haibao " costume (the official Expo mascot and 2nd cousin of Towelie) and they've got others standing around with signs reminding/teaching/hammering it into people's heads that you should stand on the right side of escalators and pass on the left.  Sounds stupid, but don't forget, "education programs" did help Beijing out with its pre-Olympic spitting problem.

Anyways, here's the latest and greatest on the Expo a year and a bit out:

• China says confident [sic] US will be in 2010 Expo: America's participation in the event has been in doubt for a while.  "U.S. organizers have been struggling to raise the $61 million needed for a pavilion at the event — a problem compounded because American law prohibits government funding of such events, which must instead be privately financed."


• Taiwan pavilion's placement at World Expo could re-spark controversy: Taiwan's going to have two pavilions representing Taipei at the Expo, but just to make sure everyone knows that the "renegade province" is still a part of China, event organizers are going to put a Taiwan section in the Chinese exhibition too.  Seems to me that if Taiwan can have its own Olympic team, China could just let this one go.
  
  
• Most of the pavilion designs are up on the official website now...check them out here.  Denmark's entry looks like it'll be cool; the Dutch one looks like it might just be a huge orange-themed dollhouse.  Britain's is a floating orb, while Italy's looks like Beijing's Water Cube.  Poland's just looks like origami.

No Can Do

So yeah, learning Chinese is hard, but so is learning English.  That's why, in the 17th century, they invented Pidgin English.  Basically a bastardized form of English with a limited vocabulary and a more flexible syntax, it was used by traders to get their point across.  Then the Chinese stopped using it because they realized people were making fun of them for using it.  Not surprising if you've seen what Pidgin English looks like (via Shanghaiist):

Chinese Pidgin English (there are all types of Pidgin English depending on where it was used) did, however have the unintended and somewhat amusing reverse effect of creating some now-common English phrases, such as:

好久不见: word for word, "long time no see"

看见: word for word, "look-see"

不能做: word for word, "no can do"

不行: word for word, "no-go"

那去: word for word, "where to?"

Turns out the Chinese have been teaching you Engrish speakers your own language for years.

Ranguage Difficruties

So I'm back in school part-time now (at Jiaotong University) to take some serious Chinese classes, and the more I learn, the more I'm amused by the construction of certain Chinese words/phrases. Some are amusing, some are just great in how much sense they make. I've gone through a few of these before, but here are a couple more examples for you guys:

出租车: taxi | literally, "hired out car"
安排: organize/plan | literally, "peaceful rows"
中国: China | literally, "central country"
长鼻王: a brand of egg rolls called Pinocchio | literally, "long-nose king"
牛仔裤: jeans | literally, "cowboy pants"
味精: MSG | literally, "essence of flavour"

Some of the slang is pretty funny too:  

做飞机: roll a J | literally, to make an airplane

我飞了: I'm high... | literally, "I'm flying"

Which leads me to my current favourite:

pangcha (I don't know the characters): Techno music. As in, pangchapangchapangchapangchapanchga... say it a few times and you'll get it.

The construction of certain Chinese characters is pretty cool too. Loyalty, for example, is 忠, which is actually a compound character: the top half means "centre" (same as in 中国), and the bottom half is "heart". Pretty fitting if you ask me.

I Ate Dog Last Night

Yes, really.

It was chewy.