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.