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I’d like to be able to link the Liu Xiang story to a broader trend about young people in China sacrificing their livelihoods / sanity for the national cause - but I don’t think that’s true. Most of them seem to be doing it because they want to drive a large car and have outlandish luxuries, like their own house.

The takeaway I had while watching the event unfold was one of alienation quickly turned to admiration - someone who finally had the courage to say ‘no.’ That he withdrew as a result of an injury does take some steam out of my sentiment. That may not matter - the general reaction (so far as I’ve interacted with people) seems to be that ‘the pressure was too great,’ and ‘psychological stress can easily lead to physical injury.’

But no one [here] yet seems to have expressed concern at how quickly the state (not even one of the media outlets or state industries, but Vice president of China himself) quickly ‘authorized’ his injury (that they had no way to control it at that point is a meaningless aside, the attempt at maintaining legitimacy was clear).

Contrary to media reports, most of the spectators in the stadium at that time were at first simply confused. Those sitting near us began quickly speaking to eachother, asking what was going on? Was it a stunt? The “silence” that descended was another product of their rapidly spun narrative. What’s most interesting is not that they try to maintain control - everyone here knows that; but rather that the power of story can compel willful ignorance.

What I fear most is that my criticism results only for their being so unsophisticated with these methods. What I find most hopeful is that so many people are questioning.

Mmm coral reef.

The games are a time for nations and peoples to set aside their differences and come together in harmonious non-partisan cohesionism. Fortunately, the Peoples’ Committee on Foreign Relations and Cultural Exportation has recognized the obvious educational benefits of preserving multi-culturo-ethnic diversity at beach volleyball games:

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Say what you will about totalitarian regimes, but they sure know how to host large sporting events. Sort of. Case in point - this is either: 1) the Beijing Olympics, 2) dystopian-pan-asian-laser-concentration-camp:

There’s been a lot made of extensive security measures taken at the Olympics. Overall they seemed rather lax; more for show than anything. Beijing right now is an odd mirror of itself as though growth had started 20-30 some years earlier. Traffic restrictions and green initiatives  trick you into thinking it’s almost livable.

Not sure what he big deal is. There are a lot of people here who are small and missing teeth. Hell, I fit that description. In general, the reaction here is, ‘well it’s a dumb rule’ (no quips about child labor, please).

Not that I’d put a conspiracy beyond the reach of the central government (some people here are saying that the entire Chinese olympic team is doping). That seems a bit far fetched.

Also, am back from Beijing. Had a chance to see Men’s Beach Volleyball, and the fateful Track and Field event on Monday.

In Beijing for the next ~4 days, watching people run around in circles, so blogging will resume next week. Until then, food: As another alternative to strictly Chinese food, Lanzhou or Xinjiang Noodles are an excellent choice. It’s basically the Pho of most Chinese cities. I’ve taken a liking to this particular shop, which isn’t far from the University. It’s run by a family of Muslims. It is interesting how some of the locals occassionally treat them - the other day I was eating and a gentleman next to me started asking one of the young girls “do you really speak common Mandarin? I don’t think you understood what I said. Why don’t you understand?” In these rare instances I become rather agitated, and tend to violate the prime directive and start engaging the individual in question, trying to determine if they are just mean people, or mean only to non-Han minorities. You find all sorts.

I liked this picture so much I even made desktops:

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Here’s a sample of the delicious hand-made noodles, for only 4Y:

I find this picture oddly compelling. It’s also important to note the extensive availability of fruit here. The best prices can be found at mobile street-stalls like these:

After creating a google earth kmz file to instruct people as to my present location; it occurred to me that someone such as myself - who has lived in all sorts of places but has no real remunerative skills to speak of, could create a semi-interactive map-resume (resumap) using a kmz file. You could even attach pictures / other types of files to demonstrate skills, and fill in entry details with material you’d otherwise put in the content section of a resume. Here’s the start of mine:

Not quite sure how to send this to employers. Will report on success, if any.

Not much coverage on the Russia / Georgia conflict here. After all, China has already won 6 gold medals - that’s approximately three minutes of footage that can be replayed day and night.

8:49p: (during one of the opening ceremony stints with lots of people), my roommate says: “dang. there sure are a lot of chinese people” (rather, 哦，中国人太多).

*update: Slate has a nice summary of how I felt about the opening ceremony; the U.S. choice of flagbearer was a rather stark contrast to Yao:

… Ultimately, Olympic success revolves around a nation’s ability to attract, retain, and develop human capital to its fullest potential. Historically, no country in the world has managed to do this quite as well as the United States. When the U.S. team enters the Olympic stadium in Beijing on Friday, distance runner Lopez Lomong will carry the flag. Seven years ago, he was one of the lost boys of Sudan, living in a refugee camp in Kenya. Today, he’s a U.S. citizen and a contender for a medal.

I’ll be in Beijing from August 16 - 18, if anyone wants to meet for tea and a solid game of weiqi.

Also remember:

It is a little known fact that most of Beijing is powered by the energy generated from Mao spinning in his grave. - DMR

Haerbin has a long and fascinating history, and a good relationship with Russians. Here we see an important institution that underpins every significant Russian expat community - the neighborhood strip club / disco:

Another angle of the same building. And then some more neon lights / kitschy bar district:

Picture and instructions after the jump.

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Western coverage of on-the-ground conditions of the Olympics seems focused largely on the extensive ad-campaigns and the massive promotional-political megaplex. It is indeed ubiquitous (and has been for the past 2+ years) so much so that it seems to have numbed the general populace to the campaign’s intent: excitement about the games.

Official promotionfanatacism is matched only by extent of lethargy towards the event among Zhou-everyman - ‘Beijing08′ seems to have become a permanent fixture of life, no more interesting or unusual than one of the several state sponsored holidays. Come Friday, of course, I imagine there will be a lot more interest - but even then it seems unlikely that support will match the promotional infrastructure ($14 million was spent on a project to teach everyone the official Chinese chant, “奥运加油，中国加油” - “Go China,” basically). At present, it’s impossible to walk more than two blocks, or watch more than 10 minutes of television without being inundated by Beijing08 kitsch or sponsorships, or the omnipresent “One World, One Dream” (同一世界,同一梦想) slogan. So what’s going to happen after dismantling the politico-commercial-promotional megaplex? (Seems as though a lot of people will have to find new jobs, for starters).

The answer likely depends on how things proceed throughout August. Should China take first place with total golds, I could see that number being incorporated as some pseudo-sacred symbol (”Beijing 08 / China 35″). I’ve opined before that the Olympics are not an appropriate forum for political statements - though Beijing did itself no favors by choosing the capital city as the host site, and then turning it into an idyllic-yet-farcical fortress parody of itself functional modern city. Pragmatism, however, suggests browbeating the self-styled monolith that is China’s central government will only lead to more inane justifications for absolutism.

So there’s a couple of possibilities, but for whatever reason I’m stuck with the prospect that world reaction fails to live up to domestic (in China) hype, barring even some minor snafu on the part of an insensitive tourist. Unfortunately, apathy and shallow acceptance may be more damaging in the long run. At least alienation can lead to engagement. Better that such engagement, uncomfortable as it may be, come sooner rather than later.

Uighur Muslim migrants continue to make China liveable, by offering alternatives to the homogenous flavors of greasy-oversurgared-MSG-ridden-Chinese fare. The most common are simply barbecued sticks of meat, lamb being the most delicious (see second picture). All provided by friendly fellows like these:

And they also have simple types of Naan, again, an excellent alternative:

All for only ~$1.20.

or how / why you should learn Mandarin. Yes the title is gratuitous, but it will land me higher on google.

How to:

1. Learn Logograms: they aren’t as frightening as you might think. The easiest way to remember them is to make up a bogus story based upon etymology (much like remembering people’s names). The following book suggests just such an approach - though written for Japanese instruction, the book teaches only meanings, not pronounciation. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the method it’s easily ported to Mandarin:



I first read it when studying Japanese many years ago. The author advocates using character radicals to construct personalized meanings for hard to remember words, since the vast majority of Chinese logograms are combinations of three-dozen or so basic symbols. For exampled, I learned 洽谈 (qia4tan2; “hold talks / discussion”) as “flowing (water) contracts and fire.” Obviously, during all negotiations we want our contracts to be flexible, but also to get our way through fiery speech. Or it’s possible to simply do a visual association - when I first learned 高 (gao1, “high; up”) I decided that it looked like an alien sitting in a ufo that was high above the ground. Yes it is stupid, but it works.

2. Speak: tones aren’t so bad (they lie, there are actually at least 6 or 7 ‘tones’ in normal Mandarin, if you consider the idiosyncratic multi-word tone changes); I find the best way is to try to memorize them within each character, and try to divorce yourself from relying on Pinyin notation. That being said, if you speak *fast* enough, no one will really care, since context will usually carry the day. It’s at least a valid method of walking before running.

More importantly, speaking Chinese often will give your face an extensive workout. I find that this is underemphasized in language instruction - allow your mouth to take on unusual shapes. With Chinese, move your tongue back slightly as the starting point, and then find out how to produce the sounds properly.

But why would we want to learn Chinese?

1. To sell fake American antiques to our gullible Chinese overlords after the invasion and subsequent occupation.*

That’s the most compelling reason i can think of. Furthermore, Mandarin is only really spoken by a couple hundred million or so people in Northeast China - a really boring place, thanks to the cultural revolution. Down in the South, where the interesting stuff is they all speak some bumpkin-local-dialect, which bears about as much resemblance as to the mother tongue as French does to German. And even though Chinese is become important in business and academia, most of the people who will be willing to do business / academe with you probably already speak English. Go learn something useful, like mathematics or poetry.

* A more comprehensive analysis of geopolitical realities puts China’s rise ‘past’ the US well beyond 2040, blithely assuming no major roadblocks (of which there are potentially many).

While I’m eating outside.

Anyone want to work in China? The newspapers here are always looking for English ‘proofers’ of stories that are translated / created specifically for the foreign branches of state media. They are needed to avoid the following:

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It’s a bit of a literal translation - ‘they’re taking our jobs’ is perhaps more colloquial. “Rice bowl” in this case means source of sustenance, as in the Communist ‘iron rice bowl’ (铁饭碗) which refers to the absolute standard of living assured by the munificence of a planned economy.

Regardless, some more background on migrant workers: I found the following passage interesting (from 中国农民工题与社会保护, pp.13-14). The monthly wage for most migrant workers (in large cities) is ~1000RMB per month; I’ll post more detailed income statistics at a later point. The survey in question was conducted by the authors over a number of years, starting in the late 90s, and the most recent iteration has ~2,000 respondents. Translation is my own, original follows:

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