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May 31, 2008

The Chinese language and me

At Managing the Dragon, Jack Perkowski explains why he decided not to learn Chinese while doing business in China:

I do this for two reasons. First, it happens to be true, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Secondly, I want to demystify China and make it more approachable for everyone. For too long, individuals who have studied China and have devoted the considerable amount of time it takes to learn the language have tended to make the country seem so mysterious, so complicated and so difficult, that it becomes an impediment for any person or company that wants to do business here.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:11 AM |

May 30, 2008

Sichuan photo gallery

A gallery of photos taken in Sichuan after the earthquake by Janek Zdzarski.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:44 PM |

China starts probe into collapsed schools

From The China Daily: The National quality watchdog Thursday warned of 'severe punishment' to anyone found responsible for the collapsed school building in the May 12 earthquake. Inspectors have taken samples of rubble to see if shoddy construction material was used, according to an official of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:57 AM |

The story of Donations Gate

ESWN has translated a Southern Weekly article about 'Donations Gate', the online scandal in which Chinese netizens have attacked foreign companies for being stingy with donations, and also focused anger on Chinese real estate entrepreneur Wang Shi and his company Vanke.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:48 AM |

I'm just here to buy soy sauce

From Speak4China:

And the newest expression sweeping the Chinese internet: 'I don't give a $@*&; I'm just here to buy soy sauce.' (关我鸟事，我出来打酱油的)

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:37 AM |

Telecom reform: a tale told by an idiot?

From China telecoms veteran David Wolf:

The government has finally announced the broad strokes of the long-anticipated plan for the restructuring of the telecoms industry, and a quasi-definitive time frame for the government to finally issue the coveted 3G censes. The business and industry media are having a field day with it, arguing about what it will mean for everyone in the industry, from China Mobile to Cisco to Nokia and, yes, even to Apple.

Here is what it really means:

Nothing.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:33 AM |

China's all-seeing eye

Rolling Stone has published an alarmist article by Naomi Klein captioned 'With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.'

Klein's ideological biases and her undergraduate fixations about the evils of multinational corporations make her an unreliable journalist but the article contains some interesting research.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:23 AM |

China quake survivors scavenge amid the ruins

Tini Tran describes for the Associated Press how earthquake survivors are trying to carry on with their lives by looking for scrap metal:

Standing atop an enormous pile of rubble that was once a three-story building, Mao Hong Lin meticulously searched for the dull glint of metal. Spotting a pointed tip, he pulled out a twisted length of steel.

"It takes money to buy anything and everything. Now our house is collapsed and I have nothing. I need the money for basics, to buy salt and cooking oil," said Mao, 37, a short, wiry man in orange shorts and soiled white gloves.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:36 AM |

Website copyright infringement pays, traffic inflation doesn't

From Tom Melcher's blog:

I think that it's clear that within the world of Chinese internet companies, lying limits growth, but stealing intellectual property doesn't.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:18 AM |

May 29, 2008

Hu Shuli: don't pat ourselves on the back yet

Hu Shuli, editor of Caijing has published an article evaluating China's response to the earthquake and cautioning against complacency. Excerpt from the English translation:

While the country's highly militarized rescue model is effective, we should not overlook its deficiencies. It would be wrong to equate strong government with 'big government,' or to wax nostalgically about the supposed superiority of a command economy.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:14 PM |

Woeser's blog hacked again

China Digital Times reports that Tibetan writer Woeser, whose movements are restricted by official orders and whose writings do not appear in the Mainland, is the victim of identity theft (of her Skype account). Her website has also been hacked by a group calling itself the Chinese Red Hacker Alliance.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:10 PM |

Quake victims overwhelm hospitals

At the Wall Street Journal, Mei Fong looks at the difficulties that Sichuan's hospitals face in treating an enormous number of earthquake victims, many of whom have been left homeless by the disaster:

The quake has severely taxed China's medical resources. Many quake victims have been given free treatment, a departure from China's medical system, which usually requires cash upfront for treatment. But some patients say hospitals are now pressuring them to leave or transfer elsewhere before they are fully treated. Hospital officials say healthy patients are taking up room needed for others.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:23 PM |

Ugandans learn Chinese language

The Assignment Africa blog looks at universities and training centers in Uganda that are catering to Chinese language learners:

Established in 1922, Makerere University is one of the oldest and most prestigious Universities in Africa. In April May of this year, the Business School of Makerere University started a new program to teach Chinese language to business students. It has set up a small class as an example group with twelve to fifteen students.

Ruth Taoli, who is the only Chinese teacher at the program, said that Chinese has become a required course for the business students since the program began, and that their learning programs are attuned to their specific areas of study. For example, students who are majoring in traveling business need to learn Chinese for travel and students who are majoring in accounting need to learn Chinese accounting terms.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:31 AM |

Chinese Red Cross on corruption watch

At Global Voices Online, John Kennedy presents photos of shoddy construction in Mianzhu and translates blog posts accusing the Red Cross of conducting a back-door deal with a shady tent manufacturer.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:21 AM |

May 28, 2008

Disabled groups not happy with Beijing

Stan Abrams at China Hearsay comments on a Times story that reports on China's new handbook instructing Olympic volunteers in how to treat disabled guests:

A few points:

1. Some of this probably language-related.

2. Seems like no one bothered to try and grasp the meaning behind a lot of that language and whether it was well-intentioned or not.

3. Most Westerners don't even know what is/is not acceptable speech these days from a politically correct point of view. Do we really expect people from another country, particularly one that is developing and was completely closed off to the world only a few decades ago, to follow all those rules?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:05 PM |

Ten observations about the post-earthquake mess

ESWN translates a post by My1510 blogger lzhwolf108 who comments on pointless posturing by government officials:

As common people like us know, when you pay respect to the dead or visit the sick, you should dress plainly and solemnly. It is advisable not to wear sunglasses. But Party Secretary Lu appears to be an important local official taking a leisure stroll during this emergency. Not only did he stroll before the camera, he also made idiotic remarks to the disaster victims such as: "An earthquake is really not such a bad thing. We can build new houses that are definitely better than the old ones ..." I would like to ask Party Secretary Lu: "Houses can be rebuilt, but what about the dead people? If this occurred at your home, would you comfort your family members with those words?"

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:44 PM |

Willow fluff and trashy romance novels

What Zhang Ziping's novels from the 1920s and 30s have to do with the publishing industry today.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:40 PM |

A native Burmese account of the cyclone aftermath

This account of the aftermath of the cyclone in Burma by a Burmese citizen was sent to Danwei from a source in Myanmar.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:32 PM |

China's silver lining

At The Atlantic, James Fallows writes about exciting opportunities in the conservation business in China:

The heart of his idea--easy to describe, tricky to implement--is capturing the enormous amount of heat normally wasted in cement making and using it to run turbines that generate electric power. This power can then be fed back into the factory, doing work that would otherwise require burning even more coal. The reduction of dust is a visible indicator of the more fundamental reduction of waste. Over the course of a long day, I heard about the many, many refinements Tang had made to this "co-generation" system since he first started working on it, in the mid-1980s. The punch line is that it now works well enough to cut the energy (mainly from coal) required to make clinker by 60 percent, and the overall power demands of the cement production line by 30 percent.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:03 PM |

Flood fears force huge evacuation

The China Daily reports that yesterday's aftershocks in Sichuan caused tens of thousands of people to sleep outside last night, whilst more than 150,000 people were evacuated from an area below an earthquake-created dam near Beichuan over fears that it may burst its banks.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:52 PM |

May 27, 2008

KMT leader in PRC

From The New York Times:

The chairman of Taiwan's Nationalist Party left Monday for Beijing, the latest in a series of moves by officials on both sides of the Taiwan Straits to forge closer relations.

The official, Wu Poh-hsiung, is the first serving chairman of his party to visit the mainland, although Lien Chan, the party's honorary chairman and unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2004, has also made the trip.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:41 PM |

New big 3 of China telecoms

Reuters have published a good summary of the government's restructuring--by fiat--of China's telecoms industry which will leave only three players in the market: China Mobile-Railcom, China Unicom-Netcom and China Telecom.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:06 PM |

Compassion, logistics, and nerves fray in Chengdu

JDM080527tent.jpg
Pete Sweeney, a Fulbright Scholar researching business policy in Chengdu, examines logistics problems in the earthquake relief effort.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:11 AM |

Q&A with Wen Jiabao

Phoenix TV reporter and editor Rose Luqiu had a chance to ask Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao a few questions while he visited earthquake victims living in tents in Sichuan's Pengzhou city last week. Joh Kennedy has translated the transcript.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:00 AM |

Landslide threats in Sichuan

This is a blog post by landslide expert David Petley about the key problems associated with landslides in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:58 AM |

Jia Zhangke and the three Factory Beauties

Translations of articles about director Jia Zhangke on the Faster than instant noodles blog.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:52 AM |

Big dumb recycling machine

At Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter describes his attempt to use a new "reverse vending machine" on Shanghai's Nanjing Road:

Now, one might reasonably ask: why does China need machines to collect bottles and can when there are tens of millions of hard-working scrap peddlers who'll do the work for less than the cost of the new machine? Well, according to Shanghai's city fathers, as reported in the Shanghai Daily, the idea is to put the scrap peddlers out of business because, quoting Shanghai Daily, "they have a negative impact on the city's image."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:25 AM |

May 26, 2008

School safety and democratic mechanisms

From David Bandurski at the China Media Project:

Zhang Qianfan: making China's schools safer means building local democratic mechanisms

One of the most persistent issues to emerge in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake is of course the question of shoddy school construction. In a column running in The Beijing News just before the weekend, Peking University professor Zhang Qianfan (张千帆) argued that the building of local 'democratic mechanisms' was necessary if China wished to avoid repetition of the tragedies of Wenchuan.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:36 PM |

Quake update: 6.4 aftershock and disaster relief

A Danwei post rounding up latest news as of May 26, 11pm about the Sichuan earthquake, the aftershock on Sunday and other news from Sichuan.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:02 PM |

BBC journalist: Did we show too much?

A thoughtful blog post by BBC correspondent James Reynolds:

I'm back in Beijing with a bit of time to think back on the earthquake and the way I covered it.

A couple of questions have been going through my mind: Did I show too much/too little? Did I intrude too far into people's grief?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:50 PM |

Sanlitun Soho

Alex Pasternack looks at the latest real estate developments in Sanlitun.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:30 PM |

Good Luck Games and Bird's Nest: photos

This links to a set of photos by Andrew Lih of the Bird's Nest during the Good Luck Games, held last weekend as a trial of some Olympic facilities. See also TooManyTribbles's photos of various Olympic venues.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 1:05 PM |

A seismic shift in China's relations with West?

Jane Macartney of The Times was allowed personal access to Wen Jiabao as he pledged openness to foreign journalists in front of the rubble of Yingxiu Middle School.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:07 AM |

Missing panda spotted alive after Sichuan earthquake

Xinhua reports:

A giant panda which went missing from a major panda base in southwest China's Sichuan Province after the May 12 earthquake was spotted alive about 5:20 p.m. on Sunday by a group of road workers.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:03 AM |

Learning to speak Olympics

Mike Meyer, author of soon to be published 'The Last Days of Old Beijing' has a piece in the New York Times about teaching English in a hutong in Beijing and Mocky the naughty monkey, star of the English text book.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:50 AM |

China Red Cross deals with tarnished reputation

From China Herald:

The China Red Cross has come again under scrutiny of China's internet users. Initially it was accused for lack of transparency, because it did not want to explain what was happening with the funds it received for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake.

Now the vice-chairman of the Sanya Red Cross Society China has been attached.

See also Speak4China: Chinese netizens continue to monitor earthquake corruption and Red Cross in the Crosshairs.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:18 AM |

Beijing blood bank is full

From Black and White Cat:

China is usually short of genuinely free blood donations, creating a market for illegal blood selling. But Tiger Temple reports that on Sunday the blood collecting buses in Beijing had temporarily stopped accepting donations because so much has been given since the earthquake. Commenters report the same in other cities around the country.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:09 AM |

Sunday afternoon 6.4 aftershock in Sichuan

From the Economic Observer:

As of late Sunday evening, at least one had died and 359 injured after a 6.4-magnitude aftershock hit Sichuan's Qingchuan county that afternoon, according to Chinese state media.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:40 AM |