Nanjing Road in Shanghai

Breaking News: Snubdown at the OK Corral

Being behind the Great Fire Wall of China and unable to access certain websites and news programs can be very frustrating for a news junkie. But once in a while, it can almost be a blessing. I have access to some US television here (that Chinese citizens aren't allowed access to) and tonight I was watching some of the Chris Matthews news program. His program is billed as a serious news program but it's typical of much of what passes as serious journalism on tv in the US. A significant portion of the program tonight regarded the "issue" of whether or not Barack Obama snubbed Hillary Clinton on the floor of Congress after President Bush's State of the Union speech. For 15 minutes Matthews and three partisan talking heads debated whether Obama had his back turned to Hillary because he was a) intentionally snubbing her, b) talking to someone else, or c) simply disoriented. The spokewoman from NOW insisted it was an insult to the entire female gender. Others surmised that Teddy Kennedy and Obama were giving Hillary the "power stare". It sounded like kids gossiping on a playground. I had to turn it off before it ruined my dinner.

Plenty of Americans find this sort of "serious journalism" highly insulting to their intelligence. Jon Stewart loves to lampoon Chris Matthews and his ilk on his parody news program, The Daily Show. But the truth is that Matthews' sort of news-lite does a great disservice to the country by diverting our attention from solid issues. Sadly, the sensationalized journalism works - at least well enough to keep people like Chris Matthews and his employers in the dough.

If only more Americans realized how exceedingly ludicrous this attention to minutiae is - especially when viewed from afar.

Snow Days, James Fallows and Social Disharmony

It's been snowing in Shanghai for three days now. It's a wet snow that melts as soon as it hits the pavement but on the vegetation it accumulates. The temperatures hover around freezing and the local paper refers to the mild snowfall as "brutal". School has been canceled for tomorrow. Yesterday, the children in the neighborhood gathered up enough snow to build a two-foot tall snowman - no, it was more of a snowgnome.

A snowy Sunday is a great day to stay inside and read James Fallows' blog about his life in China. Yesterday he touched upon a subject that is high on the list of visitors gripes about Shanghai and other cities in China. Here's his observations on how taxi and bus drivers test the patience of visitors: Stupidist things

I admire Fallows' Buddha nature but I would guess that if more drivers that nearly run down pedestrians got their cars slapped and scratched that they'd stop endangering peoples lives. Of course, the best solution would be for the police to actually start enforcing laws to protect pedestrians and for the cities to launch public awareness campaigns to get drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.

The police have other things to do however - like "maintaining social harmony". Every few months the Communist Party leadership meets in a large hall near where I work. You can always tell when a big meeting is about to take place because the police remove the benches from the sidewalk near the hall and police vans and cars line the street. Last week while the Party cadre met protesters in shabby clothing gathered to vent their grievances about being forcibly evicted from their homes. The police quickly rounded up most of them and put them on public buses that had been parked nearby and driven off. Later that same day, in front of the hall, I witnessed about 10 policemen and women that had surrounded a protester in a wheelchair and were shouting at him and pushing his wheelchair. The poor man tucked his head down and stood his ground as best he could. The police told those of us nearby to get out of the area so I didn't see what ultimately happened to the man.

Letter from Shootfire

The other day I was looking at a Chinese map of the USA and it suddenly hit me - they've given every state, every city, every river in America a Chinese name! San Francisco is called Jiujinshan (old gold mountain), New York is Niuyue, Los Angeles is Luosanji, Philadelphia is Feicheng and the country itself is called Meiguo (beautiful country). I’m almost reluctant to mention this least a xenophobic congressperson take it up as a national security threat - an obvious precursor to a planned takeover of the homeland.

It’s highly unlikely that an attack is imminent. China has a few more pressing matters to attend to before they take on world conquest. Nonetheless, in the spirit of reciprocity, I have taken up a project to give each Chinese geographical feature, from its smallest mountain stream to its largest waste-choked river, an American name. These will be real American names. None of that Piddle-upon-Sussex sort of English nomenclature mind you. I’m looking at solid names along the lines of New Bug Tussle, Grizzly Lake, and Slap Out. I may even throw in some good Native American names such as West Pottawatamie and Pushmataha. Something as hard for the Chinese to say as it is for New Yorkers to say Niuyue.

I’m going to include you in this naming project so be thinking of great names for the Chinese provinces - we’ll start with that. Here’s a few to start with:

Zhejiang
Jiangsu
Fujian
Shandong
Liaoning
Guangdong

I’ve already taken the liberty of renaming Shanghai as “Shootfire” and the capital city of Beijing as “Big Flats”. The Changjiang (long river) will be known as the “West Chattahoochi River”. The “Chunky River” (Huangpu River) runs into the West Chattahoochi just above Shootfire.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

I recently finished reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins and regret shelling out too much money for it in a bookstore in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The author purports to write an expose about how the "corporatocracy" and the American government "cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars". Perkins claims to have been an economic hit man, or EHM, a highly paid professional that does the dirty work for "the Empire". The book turns out to be a sad attempt to inflate the importance of a few projects Perkins worked on and an even sadder case of a man that imagines himself at the center of profound, world-changing events.

Early in his career Perkins recounts being interviewed by the National Security Agency (NSA) but is either rejected or decides to pursue a career with a consulting company. Still, Perkins imagines that the NSA has a mysterious hand in the rest of his career. While there is sometimes a kernel of truth to some of the dirty commerce Perkins is party to, the author takes his allegations to an extreme that is unsupported by the facts - even as he tells them. Having some experience in this realm I can say that many of Perkins' tales don't ring true. Don't waste your money on this "bestseller".

What Protest?

There was a large protest in Shanghai this past weekend but unless you saw it or have access to international media you wouldn't know about it. The unusual event has not been covered in the Chinese media. Reuters has the story here about this protest by Shanghai citizens against the proposed extension of the Maglev train line into the center of the city. The protesters believe the magnetic radiation from the Maglev would be harmful to their health. Whether or not their concerns have any basis in fact, most of the citizens of Shanghai will not be permitted to know that the issue even exists.

The OpenNet Initiative exposes censorship

Those of us living in China are well aware of the Internet censorship that is pervasive here. Websites and information are blocked for political, social and nationalistic reasons. The blog you are reading, for example, is blocked in China and cannot be viewed here without the use of an Internet proxy.

I recently came across a website that both tests whether individual websites are blocked by a country and keeps a watch on the general censorship situation worldwide. The OpenNet Initiative is a joint effort by several Canadian, American and British universities to monitor nation's efforts to control information distribution.

The OpenNet Initiative has several interesting maps on their site which show the degrees of censorship around the world. China is one of a handfull of nations that enforce "pervasive" Internet filtering or censorship.

Welcome Haibo

Last month the organizers of the Shanghai World Expo 2010 unveiled their mascot. After an exhaustive worldwide search the winner is a little blue fellow named "Haibao" The androgynous Gumby-like character with a quiff of blue hair has started appearing in posters and billboards all around Shanghai in recent weeks.

"Haibao" means sea treasure in Mandarin Chinese. According to the authorities, Haibo was "created in the image of humanity and expresses capacity to create wonderful lives and enjoy the fruits of our work. The color blue represents the ocean , the future and technology, all defining elements of the city of Shanghai and reflecting the theme of Expo 2010 Shanghai China - "Better City, Better Life". How one can get all of that out of Haibo I'm not sure.

Buddhist Temple near Phuket, Thailand

Goodbye You Tube

News out of Beijing last week was that China has decided to ban all foreign online video sources such as YouTube and Flicker. Only Chinese government-owned or licensed online video sources will be allowed after 30 January. Of course China is taking these restrictive steps with the intent of controlling what ideas Chinese citizens will be exposed to but the result is not limited to being yet another blocked source of information on the outside world. Another outcome will be that foreign online businesses are being denied equal access to the Chinese market. Chinese online video sources and e-business will be available to the entire world, but not vice versa. The playing field seems to be getting less level all the time.

From Google to Clusty

Google has floundered badly in China despite having agreed to censor its contents at China's insistance. For a number of reasons Google hasn't gained much market share in China. The root of the problem could be the arrogant and unfriendly culture that seems to permeate Google's China operation. In any case, I recently switched to using Clusty as my primary search engine.

Tsunami Route

Don't write on the cave wall

Recap on the Christmas Cruise

I brought back a nice little cold from our trip to Southeast Asia but fortunately had a four-day weekend within which to recuperate. I spent New Year's Eve huddled up with my virus and a book at home in Shanghai.

Despite the cold I brought back I/we had a very good time on our Christmas cruise from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Phuket. Shanghai is surprisingly cold in the winter (36 F as I type) so the 80-90 F weather in these places was a nice break. On top of the temperature we enjoyed clean air, all-you-can-eat dining, order, beautiful scenery, and peace.

I've read so many books about sailing in Southeast Asia and life in the region 100 or so years ago, that finally getting a chance to actually sail through the famous (and strategically important) Straits of Malacca was exciting. At some points the straits are so narrow that one can see Malaysia on one side and Indonesia on the other. But for most of the cruise we couldn't see land at all - especially the further north we went towards Phuket. I spent hours just looking out to sea and enjoying the view of endless water and blue sky.

Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, was an hours bus ride from the port to the city. This was mostly a shopping opportunity and we spent much of it in a Borders bookstore in a mall. You might not understand this unless you've spent two years in a country where all foreign book imports are strictly controlled and censored. We also went to see the Petronas Towers and old downtown "KL" as they call Kuala Lumpur. We rode KL's very modern monorail for much of this traveling.

Penang is an island just off the coast of western Malaysia that was developed by the British colonialists and features an historical old Georgetown. We saw the botanical gardens, butterfly farm and "Little India". We had lunch in an Indian restaurant that served the meals on banana leaves. G-man couldn't believe how efficient people were at eating rice and curry with their fingers.

Phuket, where the tsunami hit exactly a couple of years ago, was a seaside resort with plenty of Thai style. The Thai people are very friendly and a pleasure to be among. We didn't spend our time on the beach though - we took a bus straight to a marine national park about an hour away to sail among the karst limestone stacks that dot the bay.

We spent Christmas entirely at sea sailing back through the Straits to Singapore. The cruise ship was visited by Santa Claus (he doesn't miss anything). I spent the day reading on the top deck and listening to Christmas carols being played by a band by the pool.