Tempers flare are Mainland Chinese antagonism grows

This is reportedly a viral video from Hong Kong that shows an argument on an MTR train between local Hong Kongers and a Mainland Chinese woman who's daughter was allegedly eating soup noodles in her seat and causing a mess.

The argument and the responses to the video illustrate the sentiment felt by local Hong Kong that their infrastructure - and indeed their culture - is being placed under strain by the influx of Mainlanders. A trend that many would like the Hong Kong government to tackle more firmly.

Shockingly, the video has prompted some quite despicable comments from the mainland with regards to Hong Kongers. In a televised interview Peking University professor Kong Qing-Dong likened Hong Kongers to dogs and thieves.

Raised voices between members of the public is one thing. But for a supposed professor to make statements like these on national television?

This is clearly an issue that is not going to go away.

China's 'black jails' (disturbing)

A rather scary report from Al-Jazeera.

Can places like this really exist to deal with ordinary people who, for example, want to report corrupt officials?

Chinese Novels: 20 Classics

If, like me, you are a little in the dark about classic Chinese literature, you might appreciate this link sent to me by bachelorsdegreeonline - a list of 20 renowned Chinese novels.

'Water Margin' and 'Lust, Caution' are perhaps titles you will be familiar with but there are a host of other interesting ones to learn about.

Check out the page here.

Modern China, old fashioned disappearance

The whereabouts of artist Ai Wei Wei is still unknown after he was taken into custody by Chinese authorities as part of a major crackdown on dissent in China. Some have described as a return to the 'bad old days'.

The following is the timeline of his disappearance as reported by Western media.

October 11th 2010



November 8th 2010



March 7th 2011



April 3rd 2011


April 4th 2011


April 5th 2011

Photo: The Guardian

Massive disasters... and small gestures

A colossal natural disaster has struck Japan and as the world looks on and rallies around to help the stricken nation, the relationship between neighbours Japan and China is put in the spotlight.

When there has been strong animosity between two nations for many years, what happens when one of them is subject to a devastating natural event that causes loss of life on a huge, almost unimaginable scale?

When an earthquake struck Sichuan province in 2008 claiming the lives of around 90,000 people, China made the unprecedented move of accepting foreign help. Especially symbolic was the granting of permission for a Japanese team to join the rescue effort. They were first Japanese troops to set foot in China since World War Two.

The Japanese team did not locate any survivors (they were not allowed in until late into the operation) but they were thanked by Premier Wen and for many in China it was a small but meaningful gesture that (combined with an estimated 9 million USD in aid) hinted at the possibility of improved relations in the future.

Now the situation has been reversed. Some estimates have put the loss of life caused by the Sendai earthquake and tsunami at near Sichuan levels.

The Chinese Premier has expressed condolences and dispatched a 15-man rescue team. Aid of around 4.5 million USD has also been pledged.

Considering the scale of the disaster, it's not a lot. Yet even this contribution is more than what many Chinese would have offered Japan.

Such is the deep-rooted hatred felt towards the Japanese people amongst some Chinese, that some were openly celebrating the Sendai earthquake - cheering as though the event were some kind of moral or national victory.

Blog sinostand trawled the web as the tragedy in Japan unfolded and found some choice quotes (after initially finding many messages from people imploring their fellow Chinese not to celebrate the disaster):

“Japan earthquake, tsunami, oh ha ha ha ha ha. Brings satisfaction to everyone! Retribution, retribution ah!”

"We’re not small like Japan because we’re human beings, not pigs. Let little Japan suffer this little holocaust."

"Japan’s earthquake is worth celebrating. We should gloat. In the face of natural disasters, people are a country. Japanese people do not deserve sympathy. Give up the Diaoyu Islands, change the textbooks, then nothing will be wrong."

The last comment illustrates the source of these sentiments: war time atrocities and territorial disputes.

The writer of that article believes about there is a constant 20% of Chinese that hold these hard-line, anti-Japanese sentiments and that they run through all sections of Chinese society regardless of age or level of education.

The Japan Times published an article on Feb 27th 2011, just days before the disaster, in which a writer in Chengdu describes the deep-rooted mistrust of Japan amongst university-age Chinese. Its central quote is:

"What you must understand is we Chinese all hate Japanese."

heard by the author at a debate amongst students at Sichuan University.

Now that the full scale of the Japan disaster is unfolding, perhaps these views are not being expressed as openly but the lingering animosity is unlikely to go away.

A rescue team here, a few million dollars there. When disasters of such magnitude only result in such relatively small gestures, is there really any hope that these two countries will one day reconcile and put past differences aside?

Perhaps they are just the first, tentative steps in improving relations between the two countries? If only we didn't need huge tragedies and thousands of deaths to instigate them.

Story: Global Times

Story: International Business Times

'Dancing with Shackles On': A short film about the internet, China and freedom

Interesting viewing...

Dancing with shackles on from Janek Zdzarski on Vimeo.

via Danwei.org

In China you can 'rent' a white guy for business meetings

Photo: BBC

It sounds ridiculous and yet it also makes perfect sense when you acknowledge the business mindset in China.

These hired white guys are used for photocalls and to be present at meetings and corporate events to give the impression that the company is important and has connections to the West. Says one hired employee:

For the next few days, we sat in the office swatting flies and reading magazines, purportedly high-level employees of a U.S. company that, I later discovered, didn’t really exist. We were so important, in fact, that two of the guys were hired to stay for eight months (to be fair, they actually then received quality-control training).

“Lots happening,” Ken told me. “We need people for a week every month. It’ll be better next time, too. We’ll have new offices.” He paused before adding: “Bring a computer. You can watch movies all day.”

I look forward to the day British companies need to hire fake Chinese guys.

Source: Boing Boing

Shenzhen becoming more expensive than Hong Kong

Not long ago, traveling to Shenzhen was a popular excursion for Hong Kongers wanting cheap deals on goods and services. The region became a synonymous with 'bargain' and some Hong Kongers even relocated there to take advantage of lower property prices and living costs.

But now inflation on the mainland plus the rising value of the yuan against the Hong Kong dollar mean prices are now often lower in the SAR.

The flow of shopping tourists is starting to flow the other way, with excursions from Shenzhen to Hong Kong rapidly increasing - especially in the run up to Chinese New Year. Shoppers are not just after luxury or one-off purchases. Even daily food shopping works out roughly 20-30% cheaper in HK. As the Hong Kong Standard describes:

In Diamond Hill's Hollywood Plaza, Shenzhen resident Irene Lai Yen-fen, 28, arrived with a busload of 40 shoppers yesterday, the third Lunar New Year shopping group to visit the mall.

In less than 30 minutes, her shopping bag was full with dried seafood bought for more than HK$1,000.

Looks like the days of cheap shopping trips to Shenzhen are over... for now, at least!

Story: Mainlanders bus to HK in blitz on malls

Related: HK Prices Now Cheaper Than Shenzhen: Shoppers Flock the Other Way

Unhappy China forces Nobel boycott and launches own 'Peace Prize'

In an unusually overt and high-profile move, China has made its displeasure with the Nobel Foundation well and truly known by setting up its own rival 'Peace Prize'. The Confucius Peace Prize is to be awarded one day before writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo is honoured as the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Liu has been imprisoned by the Chinese authorities since December 2009 for subversion - his fourth prison term for political offences - and his awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize has seriously aggravated the Communist Party, unsurprisingly.

So much so that it has threatened consequences for other countries if they participate in the prize ceremony which has been held annually since 1901. The threat has been enough to cause 18 nations not to attend.

State news agency XinHuanet says:

Everyone knows that Liu Xiaobo, who is supposed to be "honored" in a ceremony in Oslo on Friday, is an imprisoned criminal and what he has done has nothing to do with "peace. Why did the Committee select Liu as this year's winner?

The answer is clear: Liu has done everything he could to subvert the Chinese government, and that suits the strategy of some organizations and people in the West toward China

Liu was one of the authors of Charter 08, a political manifesto published in 2008 which called for political reform and an end to one party rule in China.

He also played an instrumental part in persuading many students to leave Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protests, saving many lives. Ironically, for those actions he was dubbed one of the "Four junzis of Tiananmen Square". Junzi is a term meaning an exemplary, commendable person and was coined by... Confucius.

Liu is serving an 11 year sentence to run until 2020.


Story: Daily Telegraph

Related: Liu Xiaboa, Wikipedia

Related: XinHua

Large protests over attempt to 'push aside' Cantonese

Photos: China Droll

There have been reports that thousands of people in the Cantonese-speaking southern Chinese city of Guangzhou staged a peaceful protest when the government announced it would switch most local television programming to Mandarin, the official national language of China.

Beijing has promoted Mandarin for decades to unite a nation with thousands of dialects and numerous minority languages.

Cantonese is still widely spoken in the booming southern province of Guangdong, thanks in part to the spillover influence of Hong Kong's wildly successful and racy vernacular pop culture, but some people fear for its future.

Chinese newspapers and Internet sites have reported on companies where employees are fined for speaking Cantonese at work, prompting anger.

"I support Cantonese. If we don't speak it, we are shaming our ancestors," wrote "Bright Star" on the popular Chinese internet portal Sina.com.

I have to say, even as a rubbish Canto speaker living in England, I feel quite proud that people are willing to stand up for our language like this.

Language preservation is a contentious issue; The Communist party and its supporters see language adoption as an important tool in promoting homogeneity and unity in China. But for those whose native dialect is not Mandarin, language is a vital part of their identity and heritage.

How can China protect and - dare I say - promote local diversity in language without conflicting with its goal of homogeneity? Is that even possible?

Source: Reuters via SkyscraperCity

Related: The Changing Sound of Chinatown

Big Spenders from the Mainland - two sides of a story

Just as the UK's Daily Telegraph publishes a wide-eyed article about the extravagant shopping habits of China's newly wealthy tourists, there comes a viral video from Hong Kong that shows a tour guide berating her party of Mainland guests for not spending 'enough' during their visit to the SAR.

The Telegraph article - which to be honest could have been written any time in the last 5 years - paints Chinese tourists as potential saviours of a struggling UK economy whilst at the same time pointing out some of the eccentricities of the new Chinese rich:

Nowhere is China’s confidence seen more clearly than in its demand for luxury goods. Last year the People’s Republic overtook the United States to become the second biggest market for the luxury sector; and by 2015 it will have overtaken Japan, with a market projected to be worth £11 billion annually.

...The eccentricity of Chinese buying habits takes other forms. Fine wine may be a status symbol in the high-end restaurants of Shanghai but many locals are not so enamoured of the actual taste.

“The Chinese used to water down the cheap wine they first encountered and now consider that the normal way to drink it,” says Mr Grant. “Which can be a bit of a shame when you’ve just opened a nice Margaux.”

The flip side of this story comes in the form of the viral video, in which a tour guide called Ah Zhen - thought by some commenters to be a Hong Kong based Mainlander herself - does a 'Bus Uncle' by launching into a long, insulting tirade against her clients who seems remarkably quiet whilst being chastised.

Some of the choice quotes being reported in the press are:

"It's you who owe me here, not me owing you. I provided you with food and accommodation but you people will not give."
"If you don't repay the debt in this life you will have to repay it in your next life."
"It's OK to be poor at home, but you can't act like this when you are outside. Don't tell me you don't need [the jewellery], I say you don't need to eat either. Tonight I will lock all hotel room doors, because you don't need accommodation."
"We don't do this for charity. Let me be responsible for charity. I donated 10,500 yuan [HK$12,027] for Sichuan earthquke victims."
"Why did you bother to come to Hong Kong?"

All this an not one person threw anything at her. What a polite group of tourists!

Who knows, if the UK economy were to decline even more maybe we'll start to see rants like this on the streets outside Prada and Gucci? Well, maybe not :)



Guide video via Living In Hong Kong

UK shopping article via The Daily Telegraph

The hidden Tiananmen commemorations

Photos: CND.org

21 years after the massacre in Tiananmen Square, the issue is still too politically sensitive to be commemorated in China. But on the internet, discussion about what is obliquely referred to as 'May 35th' can still take place and ensures the events of June 4th 1989 will never be forgotten.

Twenty-one years have passed, how much longer must we keep commemorating this in a virtual space [instead of being allowed to do it openly]?

Gradually aging comrades, we must tell the story of what happened 21 years ago to the next generation. We cannot let these seeds, thirsty for freedom, be extinguished. We can not let our sons and grandsons continue to be slaves.

Link: Chinageeks.org

Differences Between Chinese and Japanese Women

A cheeky (and slightly narrow) examination of how Chinese and Japanese women differ, as found on Chinasmack.com

But what would the list for Chinese and Japanese men be like, I wonder? :)

Link: 14 Differences Between Japanese Women & Chinese Women

Perhaps the riskiest tourist attraction in China

... and maybe the world.

Photo: DamnCoolPics

Huashan in Shaanxi province is one of China's sacred mountains and a hugely popular tourist destination. Besides the sedate pleasure of temples and awe-inspiring scenery, there is also a precarious pathway that is becoming known as one of the most deadly tourist activities in the world, a narrow trail that takes hikers up a steep mountainside with at times nothing but a couple of planks or a chain to stop you plummeting to your death.

So how dangerous is this trail? Actually no-one knows the official figures because none are available. But from seeing online accounts and photos, I think we can safely say it's not somewhere you want to take your digital SLR.

Kudos to the guy who installed those planks, though!

Quietly, nine Xinjiang protesters are executed in China

Report from the Guardian:

"The worst ethnic unrest in decades began on 5 July when minority Uighurs attacked Han people, who make up China's dominant ethnicity, only to face retaliatory attacks two days later. Many Uighurs resent Beijing's heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, the traditional homeland of their Turkic Muslim ethnicity.

Four months later Xinjiang remains smothered in heavy security, with internet access cut and direct overseas phone calls blocked.

The official China News Service has reported that the nine were executed after a final review of the verdicts by the supreme people's court as required by law. It gave no specific date or other details. Earlier reports had identified those condemned as eight Uighurs and one Han.

The executions did not come especially quickly for China, which puts more people to death than any other country. Politically sensitive cases are often decided in weeks, especially when they involve major unrest.

The nine had been convicted of murder and other crimes committed during the riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital. China blames the rioting on overseas-based groups agitating for broader rights for Uighurs in Xinjiang."

However, I wanted to see the story from the China side, so I went to the China Daily international website. Surprisingly, I could find no mention of the executions.

Personally I am opposed to the death penalty anyway, so any report of state executions in any country make unpleasant reading but there is something especially disturbing about this story, specifically how little information is released.

You would think that for a court to convict these people and sentence them to death there must be some pretty damning evidence against them. For example, if a murderer is sentenced to death in the United States, the minute details of the case will have been reported for weeks or even months previously. Anyone following the case will be usually well informed on precisely what the alleged offender is meant to have done and what evidence there was to support the charges.

In the case of these executed prisoners, the Guardian says hardly details of what they did, how they did it, or when they did it have been released. Earlier government statements had said some of the accused had been charged with murder but besides the accusation, virtually nothing else is known. Apparently even the date they were executed has not been disclosed.

Every country has a right to maintain law and order but this amount of darkness and secrecy surrounding executions is wrong, in my opinion. Letting the public know what these people did and the evidence against them would only add legitimacy to China's actions. So why the secrecy?

Story: The Guardian
Story: The Himalayan Times

Eat your heart out, Las Vegas

China gets in on the outrageously themed architecture game with this, erm, interesting novelty hotel.

via Gizmodo

Related: Chinese folk religion

'No Farmers Allowed'

Truly a sign of the times from modern China (Changchun). Well, it's either farmers or workman's attire they don't like.

They have a point, though: Every farmer I know is always wanting to pop into the local Emporio Armani!

via Danwei

Two videos for 6/4

Former Communist Party official Bao Tong has been exiled by the Chinese authorities for the part he played in smuggling out the secret memoirs of ousted Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang.

Zhao was a reformer on the side of the student protesters who was in favour of democracy for China. His smuggled memoirs have just been published in a book, 'Prisoner of the State', which lifts the lid on the inner workings of the Communist Party. It certainly looks like an interesting read. The Telegraph as published some extracts.

Secondly, a profile of Chai Ling, a Tiananmen Square student activist now forging a career in the West:

Jackie Chan's awkward position, and the controversy within a controversy

This is the video of Jackie Chan's recent comments about Chinese people needing to be 'controlled' that sparked such an angry response from many Chinese commentators. His comments were made during an interview about mainland media regulation.

In case you hadn't heard, Yahoo News (and others) have reported that:

A group of mainland Chinese academics and media professionals wrote an open letter calling Chan the "spoiled brat" of the Chinese race.

"You are born in Hong Kong, a free Hong Kong which provides you with excellent conditions to become an internationally renowned martial arts star," the letter said.

"You are now the cream of the crop, and yet you don't know the importance of freedom."

There have even been calls for boycotts of Chan's movies and concerts. The main part of what Chan said that caused such anger was:

In these ten years -I grew up in Hong Kong- I slowly felt, I don't know how much freedom we should have. Too much freedom and we'll be like Hong Kong right now, very chaotic. Or become like Taiwan, also very chaotic. I slowly feel like we Chinese needs to controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.

If we don't control things, we'll do things as we wish. Why can't I eat gum in Singapore? You would think that not being allowed to eat gum is correct. If I give you gum, some people might take the gum and stick it on tables, put it on chairs without self-respect."

It is hard to read such comments and not see them as being critical of Hong Kong, so I think the anger of people in the SAR is understandable.

But that initial controversy has spawned its own controversies with Chinese bloggers claiming Chan's words have been misinterpreted, with some even claiming that it is an evil Western conspiracy.

CN Reviews claims the furore is the fault of the evil 'Western media'

"Westerners look like they’re frothing at the bits to use anything they can to paint China in a negative political light: “Oh look, even lovable kung-fu funny-man Jackie Chan has betrayed his own, selling out both himself and his kind to the evil Communist regime!” To which the Western masses reply in unison: “Gasp!”"

That's an extreme reaction, I think. Chan's comments were indeed critical of Hong Kong, or 'his own', the place that made him a star. And I think most people would accept that Chinese entertainment figures are indeed very careful not to upset Chinese authorities in the interests of their career. I don't think that's a crazy invention of the Western media.

EastSouthWestNorth chose to interpret Chan's words differently, coming up with a translation that doesn't use the inflammatory word 'control':

If there is too much freedom, it becomes like Hong Kong today ... very chaotic ... furthermore, it becomes like Taiwan ... it is also very chaotic ... eh ... I have slowly come to realize that we the Chinese people need regulation ... If there is no regulation and we suddenly opened up, we can do whatever we want.

Even if that is a grammatically correct translation (and I'm not the one to judge that), I'm not sure if the meaning is exactly right as Chan actually talks about personal freedoms and behaviour before and after the quote in question - not the sort of things usually referred to in English as 'regulation'.

cfensi blog also chose to translate the line differently as:

"I slowly feel like we Chinese needs to control. If we don't control things, we'll do things as we wish."

i.e. not 'be controlled', but to do the controlling.

What seems to have been missed in all the analysis is that however you translate the comments, the point he is making is basically the same when you look at the entire speech.

I would suggest that what Chan actually meant in his off-the-cuff remark was that Chinese people need rule of law. If we don't have rule of law, we'll do things as we wish. I base that on the fact that he talks about freedoms in Hong Kong immediately before, and laws in Singapore immediately after the comment in question. Is that simple statement something many of us would dispute?

My take on this whole thing is that for Chan, being asked about Chinese media regulation put him in an uncomfortable spot because he recently had a movie banned in China for being too violent. The journalist may have been hoping the actor would make a comment about his own movie being denied a release but Chan chose (perhaps diplomatically) not to do that and instead broadened his answer to make a generalised statement that ended up being in favour of control (or regulation).

To me, it seems he was just performing a difficult balancing act whilst in an awkward position - something Jackie Chan is very used to doing!

Related: The journalist who asked the original question responds

The Life of Rural Chinese Children

I caught this interesting video on Shanghaiist. It depicts the life of young children who are left at home in the countryside by parents who go off to find work in the cities.

With an estimated total migrant workforce of 130 million, these situations are not uncommon in rural China.

The video starts out like a bland, 'National Geographic' type of documentary but the more you watch, the more engrossed you become in the children's stories and - for me - the more sympathy you have for their situation.

What I don't understand is why the parents don't return home, say, once a year to see their children. The first girl featured has not seen her mother in five years and tells the interviewer she can barely remember what she looks like. So sad.