rolling china thread 2011

most travel writing is just "man this place is really weird...and cool...and scary!" tho

well its not just travel writing, he lived there for a couple years during the run-up to the olympics. and iirc his wife is chinese, or chinese-american.

yeah but ~how much can you ever really know about someone else~

I mean it'll probably be more nuanced than most, but it'll still be from the perspective of an outsider (and that's not a bad thing!) - I'd prob treat it as 'creative nonfiction'

I tend to treat all nonfiction as creative though so don't mind me

arent we all outsiders tho think abt it

~kant~

you guys should read it, tell me what you think

― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, September 20, 2011 8:00 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sry, kant

I mean, writing about other cultures is tough! commenting about other cultures is tough. you are always treading a thin line between exoticizing/romanticizing that culture and being ethnocentric about that culture. things that appear outre to you may be totally normal if you were socialized in that culture. blah blah blah

by the same logic its in a way easier to see things abt foreign cultures

oh yeah totally. it's a tough balancing act though. I catch myself making sweeping generalizations all the time, it sucks, feels like I'm walking on eggshells

the world is a refuse heap

Subject: reporter killed after cooking oil story
***********************************************************

Source: South China Morning Post (9/20/11):
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a
0a0/?vgnextoid=4666d08d4f582310VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD

Reporter killed after 'gutter' cooking oil story
Agence France-Presse in Beijing

A journalist who had been following a scandal involving the sale of
cooking oil made from leftovers taken from gutters has been stabbed to
death, police and state media said on Tuesday.

Li Xiang, 30, a reporter with Luoyang Television Station in the central
province of Henan, was knifed more than 10 times early on Monday as he
returned home from a karaoke session with friends, the Zhengzhou Evening
News reported.

The laptop computer Li had been carrying was missing and police were
treating the case as a murder-robbery, but have not ruled other motives,
the report added.

Police said that Li "died in the early morning of September 19" but
declined to comment further as the case was still under investigation.

An editor at the television station declined to comment.

Li, who was due to be married in October, had apparently been following
the latest food scandal to hit the mainland, a "gutter" cooking oil scam
that led to the arrests of 32 people caught selling the carcinogenic
product.

Police in Henan and the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Shandong have
found more than 100 tonnes of the recycled oil illegally made from
leftovers taken from gutters, the Ministry of Public Security said in a
statement.

The last post on Li¹s micro-blog on September 15 said web users "had
complained that Luanchuan county (in Henan province) has dens
manufacturing gutter cooking oil, but the food safety commission replied
that they didn¹t find any".

Bloggers said they suspected Li¹s death was related to his previous
reports on the "gutter" cooking oil cases.

"Luoyang Television Station reporter Li Xiang got stabbed to death, I
suspect it¹s related to his reports on Œgutter¹ cooking oil," a web user
said on Sina¹s popular social networking site Weibo.

"Li Xiang¹s stabbing death is the unfortunate outcome of investigating the
gutter cooking oil cases," another user said.

jesus

I should get a mod to rename this thread to "rolling depressing china thread 2011"

yeah i was gonna say

yeah... i was thinking that when i posted it, too: there's probably enough about gutter oil and tortured dissidents on here.

but what are you gonna do?

I've been reading a bit on China's incursion into Africa recently (much of it good news), I should start linking stuff from here.

hah I'll bet you a ten dollar to a donut that there's a dark side to that too

always

Zambia had its elections today, the incumbent (Banda) running partly on the strength of his initiative to bring in the Chinese. It seems to have all gone a bit bloodbath.

I don't think you need me to point out that the overriding drive for china's presence in Africa is natural resources. yeah they're building hospitals and schools there too and putting money into the region, but...

my uncle worked for pretty much his whole life at a metallurgical company in china, he has pictures of himself in the 70s or 80s in Africa on a business trip including one where he's shaking hands with some African dictator or another

Yeah, Africa gets short-term benefits and China gets a continent. So much of Africa is so fucked they'll do anything to underscore the wealth of the top 1% boost their chances, especially with China tailoring its goodies to each country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/world/asia/anger-and-suspicion-as-survivors-await-chinese-crash-report.html?pagewanted=all

had no idea about the bureaucratic structure of the railway ministry - they have their own court system? 2 million employees? crazy!

in some lighter news, yao ming makes an unexpected appearance at the world basketball championship (or somtehing like that )

http://sports.creaders.net/newsViewer.php?nid=485986&id=1091943

my bad, I'm pretty sure it's the asian basketball championship

Zambia had its elections today, the incumbent (Banda) running partly on the strength of his initiative to bring in the Chinese. It seems to have all gone a bit bloodbath.

― Autumn Almanac, Wednesday, 21 September 2011 19:58 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sata won this. He's less favourable toward China making inroads so this will be interesting. Bloodbath was overrated btw.

more bummerz

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/world/asia/rape-case-is-a-rarity-in-chinese-justice-system.html?pagewanted=all

"Anhui province is today announcing the cancellation of Chaohu city."

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/21/140633602/the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-chinese-city?sc=tw&cc=share

sounds like a borges story

when I started reading it I thought "bet this is going to be economically motivated" and hey it was

"It's a good thing," says one old man who gives him name as Mr. Guo, as others nod in agreement. "There's too much corruption. The officials take all our money."

hmm

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/world/asia/two-tibetan-monks-set-themselves-on-fire-in-protest.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/what-we-really-need-to-fear-about-china/2011/09/14/gIQAPrMy0K_story.html

During my most recent trip this past week, I also I taught classes at Tsinghua University, for an entrepreneurship program run by UC-Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship. The students there were very much like those I teach at Duke and Berkeley. They were hungry for knowledge, connections, and ideas. The only difference I noted was in the answer to one question: Why do you want to become an entrepreneur? American students usually talk about building wealth or changing the world. The Chinese said they saw entrepreneurship as a way to rise above “the system,” to be their own bosses and to create their own paths to success. They clearly did not cherish the idea of working for a stodgy state enterprise, an autocratic government, or what they deemed to be an opportunistic foreign multinational.

they wanna be their own bawse

that may be an interesting distinction on a theoretical level but I bet it just means they want to make a lot of money and be a baller

Take Robert Hsiung, who graduated from Stanford in 2008. He received several job offers in Silicon Valley, Singapore, and Hong Kong. But he chose to become an entrepreneur and to move to Beijing, because the economy was booming and the number of Chinese Internet users was increasing rapidly. Robert’s first start-up, a social-media company called OneCircle.cc, was a moderate success. His next company, FoxFly, failed because larger players moved into his market space. In August, he launched his third start-up, which is building a professional-networking application. Robert told me that he had absolutely no problems recruiting top engineering students. And even though he had failed, Chinese investors readily invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in his latest start-up.

this? this is the best anecdote you got for us?? a guy who failed 3 times?

article doesn't have any real substance to it

tho it is true that americans are not particularly entrepreneurial these days, it's silly to frame it as a competition w/ the chinese and it's better to talk about reasons why (access to $, health insurance, etc.)

otoh
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204010604576595002230403020.html

it's about a broader change in culture that's begun to accept failure as a part of the entrepreneurial cycle. sure, it's a trend piece and ultimately trend pieces are always a touch puffy, but plenty of what i'm reading suggests there's a native entrepreneurial streak taking root. is that what you're contesting?

I'm contesting 'Our policy makers are right to worry, but they are worried about the wrong things.'

china's entrepreneurial streak is the worst thing that's ever happened to it

it has to be pointed out that the 'failure is a good thing in the world of entrepreneurs' is actually a pretty foundational bedrock tenet

basically there are good reasons to have beef w/ china (cue dayo jpg) but 'they will suddenly become the world entrepreneurial leaders + this will be bad for america', I mean...

it has to be pointed out that the 'failure is a good thing in the world of entrepreneurs' is actually a pretty foundational bedrock tenet

― dayo, Tuesday, September 27, 2011 7:59 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

of what

entrepreneurs!

it's their mantra - so that when they do inevitably fail they will pick themselves up by their own bootstraps because they are self-motivated and self-driven and that's why they are destined to succeed, do you see

china's entrepreneurial streak is the worst thing that's ever happened to it

― dayo, Tuesday, 27 September 2011 19:58 (11 minutes ago)

it's their mantra - so that when they do inevitably fail they will pick themselves up by their own bootstraps because they are self-motivated and self-driven and that's why they are destined to succeed, do you see

― dayo, Tuesday, September 27, 2011 8:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

sure, there's a sense of false hope embedded in the thing, but i'm not really seeing what you're getting at?