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Even as we protest against the western cultural hegemony and resist the possible political plots, we need to examine ourselves humbly. The Olympics is like the WTO. It helps the Chinese people to share in the universal culture and it also expresses what the international community wants from China. This does not reflect solely the will of China. There is no free ride in the international system of relationships. The Olympic spirit emphasizes the tolerance and surpassing of cultural divides. Everybody is supposed to act as world citizens to see and understand different cultural backgrounds and values, and learn to live harmoniously together in a diversified environment.
There are connections between all of the boycott debates currently in play. But it is a mistake to treat the boycott of Carrefour and the criticism of CNN as simply a tit-for-tat phenomenon, a case of angry Chinese taking a purely reactive "if you take aim at our games, we'll take aim at your profits" attitude. China has a long tradition of using anti-foreign boycotts to counter everything from invasions to perceived insults to the nation's honor.
More at The China Beat.When it took on the games, China promised heroic efforts for change. But the torch debacle has left it snarling in a corner.
French luxury-goods group LVMH has decided to postpone a vintage car rally that it was due to organise in China at the end of May, a company spokesman told Agence France-Presse.
The Louis Vuitton China Run was supposed to take place between May 25 and June 1.
More than 1,000 children, aged between 9 and 16 from poor families in Liangshan, Sichuan province, have been lured to Dongguan, Shenzhen and Huizhou in the Pearl River Delta area, to work as cheap labor in factories, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
Liu Zhigeng, Party secretary of Dongguan, has instructed the police and labor departments to rescue all youngsters as soon as possible and punish the people responsible.
The Southern Metropolis Daily is here (in Chinese).Another Shanghai book is The Unexpurgated Diary of a Shanghai Baby by Elsie McCormick, a humorous little book that was first published in 1923.
Adopting the "viewpoint" of a one-year-old baby, the author describes the life of an American expat household in Shanghai in the early 1920s. Seeing the old days through the eyes of the baby, you might find the expat lifestyle surprisingly similar to that of today.
As in the old days, many foreign families hire a Chinese ayi who speaks only a little English, if any. At times, they still get confused by how the ayi cleans the house or does the laundry. And the ayi still can't understand when parents let the toddlers run around by themselves.
Such similarities are what Earnshaw considers "fun and significant," and a big reason for republication.
But Beijing may be doubting its backfiring tactics, and secretly shameful of some of its own citizens' behaviour. (You know something is up when you see Chinese guards cracking down on pro-China protests; or when even Communist Party members writing for Mainland newspapers are getting death threats for being too "moderate" towards foreigners.) In the past, when it looked like it was all going wrong, Beijing would call out the tanks. But that iron fist thing is so Soviet-era 20th century. Now, they bring in the PR flacks.
Or at least this is what commentators are suspecting, with a sneer about the Bohemoth Chinese media / propaganda onslaught that will soon (or is already) being let loose on the world.
China has always been highly decentralized in its power, owing greatly to its enormousness. Yet at a more fundamental level, placing the blame on local officials absolves the central government of much of its responsibility. While it’s true that Beijing does not want rogue local officials terrorizing Chinese citizens, it also has shown little desire to step into disputes unless absolutely forced. In other words, it wants things to be better, it just has little interest in facilitating certain types of change.
In many of his essays, Bo told Chinese that their culture — a source of pride for centuries — has many shortcomings. He criticized the Chinese as selfish, unconcerned about other people's rights and being too willing to tolerate the abuse of power.
He argued fervently that those qualities hurt democracy and favored authoritarian regimes.
The Ugly Chinaman has just been adapted into a comic book.There will be conspiracy theorists, probably in this comments section, that will say India, South Korea, Japan, et al have all been influenced by the west, are "slaves of the west", or whatever convenient excuse people choose to create. But the bottom line is the FT movement - and the backlash against the Chinese government (not the people, I'm at pains to add) - is far from a western phenomenon.
Addressing a China-Africa forum at the Nairobi Safari Club, the envoy noted: "We can produce good quality products, and Chinese businesses sell them. Good products are plentiful in China, so why buy low quality?"
...To investigate the claims, the ambassador took a walk along Nairobi's River Road, where he met a trader selling Chinese-made shoes of low quality, at Sh400 a pair.
"When I asked him why he was selling low quality shoes, he told me; 'if I don't sell such shoes people will walk bare foot'. This seller made rethink about this issue. Maybe he has reason to do such business."
Q 1: If a foreigner came up to you and slapped you across the face would you be nonchalant, not slap back and show yourself as the bigger person?
A: A foreigner has never came up to me and slapped me in the face.
via the Hao Hao Report.Second Right Brother (右二哥哥) is a member of the torch security detail who for many Chinese (women) has come to embody a new handsome hero standing up to protect China’s pride. Second right refers to his position in the security detail.
Most Hakka view the buildings merely as shelter and their location and functions as outdated, noted Ping Yip, a recent master’s degree graduate in Hong Kong who researched and lived in the tulou. Yet, she said, "if all the residents move out, the tulou loses its cultural significance as a human settlement."
The [Nobel] foundation claims TV4 violated its contract by letting China Central Television and Shanghai Media Group cut out parts of a speech by foundation Chairman Marcus Storch.
Foundation spokesman Michael Sohlman said the incident was "very, very serious. Especially if you take the contents of the censored speech into account."
via Absurdity, Allegory and China.Though Beijing lacks evidence of organized extremism, there is "increased religious conservatism" in pockets of Uighur society, notes Dru Gladney, an authority on China’s Muslims at Pomona College in California. The religious revival has coincided with growing numbers of well-off Uighurs going on the Haj – considered a rite every Muslim should perform at least once in life. Nationwide, a total of 10,700 Muslims belonging to the Hui and Uighur Musliim minorities made the trip in 2007, 900 more than in 2006 -- though Party authorities have maintained strict caps on the numbers since opening passage to Mecca in the 1980’s....
Officials are careful not to implicate the Hajji in their crackdown on the "three evil forces". But as the ranks of Hajji and their "wannabe's" have mushroomed, Uighurs widely contend, authorities are quietly taking steps to limit movements to Mecca. Passport controls have tightened. In some villages in Khotan, Uighurs from the prefecture say, only one or two passports are being issued a year now, often to the highest bidder.