Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Fly Deer

I took a trip to Tianjin today for some business and flew on something called "Deer Airlines". I had bought a ticket on Hainan Airlines but the plane they put us on had the Deer Airlines logo on it. There was no explanation of course but no one seemed to care as long as it got us there. If I can reach them later I'm going to suggest they put antlers on the front of the plane.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

This is grass clippings and sticks tea that our guests served us. Posted by Picasa
Outer Peavinoma

I had some friends from Peavine in town on business this week so we got together at the Moon River Diner and they updated me on politics in Outer Peavinoma - always an intriguing subject. It seems that cigar-smoking Lumpkins still hold the palace and Pomfrits still control the media. Nothing has changed.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

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Repulse Bay in Hong Kong Posted by Picasa
Trader Vic's and the Young of Shanghai

I went to the opening of the first Trader Vic's in China on Friday evening. This Polynesian-style restaurant and bar is located just a block off busy Nanjing Street on otherwise dark Fengyang Street. A lot of money was obviously put into this development in downtown Shanghai and I hope they do well. I didn't get a chance to sample any food but their maotai's were good. The only glitch in the opening was a serious miscalculation in the cloak room. Everyone received numbered tickets but the coats were not stored in any sort of order. When everyone tried to leave at the same time in the typical Shanghai way (sans queue) there was chaos. Not a few unpleasantries were exchanged. I often criticize Shanghainese for rude behavior in public but in this instance they had some stiff competition from some expats for championship rudeness.

Shanghai changes people, foreigners included. When foreigners find themselves faced with the queue-jumping, the shoving, and the general everyone-for-themselves nature of this city they choose one of two ways to deal with it. You either have to maintain your principles and lose the battles or you have to adopt the ways of the most aggressive Shanghainese. I vacillate between the two depending on the moon's position and the behavior of my opponent. If he comes off as taking me for a fool I'd just as soon put an elbow between his belt loops. If he shows a hint of consideration I'll make way for him.

Consideration is, I'm sorry to say, a rarity in public here. But it does happen and most frequently among the young Shanghainese. Empty seats are hard to find on public buses but two or three times young people have tapped on my shoulder to point out an empty seat for me. Once in a while a person will invite me to go through the door before them. In almost all cases I can think of, the nice person was young. I don't get this sort of treatment from Shanghainese over 30 - not unless they need something from me. Could this have something to do with the Cultural Revolution of the late 70s? I've heard people say that the horrors of that period debased Chinese society and caused people to distrust one another. I've heard Chinese say that their society hasn't been the same since that experience. Could the young people's increasing exposure to international norms of behavior be affecting the way they see others and causing them to be more considerate? I think there is hope.

Friday, January 12, 2007

A friend recently gave me this Xitang from her sister's wedding. During and after a Chinese wedding, the newlyweds present little gifts of Xi Tang to friends, relatives and well-wishers. Literally, Xi means happiness and Tang means candy. A tradition that began long ago.
The bag contains eight pieces of candy. The number "eight" is considered lucky because it rhymes with "wealth" in the Chinese language. Posted by Picasa
There's nothing better than a tall glass of hot Calpis right?
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Trouble on the Horizon

Can you imagine what the USA would be like if every citizen was male? Well, by 2020 it is estimated that there will be a gender imbalance in China of such magnitude:

PRC Gender Imbalance Reuters ("CHINA SAYS SKEWED SEX-RATIO COULD MEAN INSTABILITY ", 2007-01-11) reported that the PRC will be home to 300 million more men than women by 2020, state media said, warning the gender imbalance, along with an aging population and rapid urbanization, could be destabilizing. The PRC has about 119 boys born for every 100 girls, an imbalance that has grown since it introduced a one-child policy more than 25 years ago to curb population growth -- a restriction that bolstered a traditional preference for boys.

300 million more men than women in one country! It will be like an entire US (pop. 300 million) of men without hope of finding wives. That doesn't bode well. You'll have 300 million men driving around, refusing to stop to ask for directions. You think the streets of China are chaotic now? And the men who stay home will be helpless because there won't be anyone around to ask where stuff is.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Great t-shirt idea

I'm sure you're familiar with Ouagadougou - the capital of Bukina Faso? Does anyone know if there's a Ouagadougou University? I'd love to have a Ouagadougou U. t-shirt.
The Cable Guy

What I want to know is who is the chap that decided to place all of the trans-Pacific undersea cables in the same earthquake-prone location near Taiwan? Ever since the Taiwan earthquake the day after Christmas damaged most of the cables carrying communications across the Pacific it's been nearly impossible to use the Internet to get any sites outside of mainland China. For a news junkie like this writer this has been torture! Now I can better empathize with the Chinese who don't have access to the world media on a regular basis. Relying upon only the news from China's controlled press for the last couple of weeks has not been pleasant. The Columbia Journalism Review once described the Daily Peavinian as "functioning like a newspaper in reverse - it sucks the intelligence right out of its readers". Well, it has some stiff competition in China's People's Daily. It's literally killed off billions of my neurons.

The military defenders of Taiwan must now realize that all they have to do to bring China (and the rest of Asia) to its knees is snip a few cables.