what would you say your stance is wrt wrt
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:17 (twelve years ago) link
there are lots of talking point china economy criticisms. but bestseller china books tend to ignore them: horrible horrible corruption, inefficiency and lack of innovation, an export oriented economy with household consumption consistently hovering around 30% of gdp, a fucked up relationship between china's banks and its state owned enterprises which has led to questionable investment and a lot of unpaid debt, the destruction of the country's air and water, the increasing inability to secure resources, a huge gap between rich and poor. china can't keep growing without heavy duty restructuring.
but beyond the economy. china is not building its growth on an ancient indigenous philosophy or a radically different view of modernity.
china's elite are reading neoliberal economists not mencius.
"confucianism" should be banned from discussions of china. it should be banned from all discussions. it is meaningless, except as vague shorthand for "traditional philosophy of east asia" by people that are unfamiliar with the traditional philosophy of east asia.
china's development will definitely follow its own unique path. but its current model is fucked and can never be successful in the long run. even now, there is widespread protest.
jacques is quick to point to the racial makeup of china, its strong nationalism. but china is not racially homogeneous and pushing the nationalist myth is a project that the central government spends billions on. where we see a big ol country called china, there has been 6000 years of warring competing states.
south korea is another place that's racially homogeneous and makes a big deal of it. south korea is pretty fucking nationalistic. south korea is culturally distinct from the west. south korea has its own unique cultural institutions. but it also has rule of law and democracy and cleaves to a vaguely western idea of modernity (if that matters).
― dylannn, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 20:50 (twelve years ago) link
yeah I do agree with a lot of that. but I am interested in how chinese people conceptualize china, and, if we're being real, how han people conceptualize china, because that's what counts right now right? like it's interesting to me that you ask any US citizen about the history of the US, they are probably going to start more or less in the 1700s - maybe some discussion of amerigio vespucci and all that but our conception of the US as a modern nation state nicely dovetails with the enlightenment. and if you ask any chinese person about the history of China, the rote answer is going to be that China has thousands of years of history - four thousand sometimes! and they're going to start talking about 秦始皇 and all that.
and yeah I totally agree with you about the nature of china's nationalist myth - but you can't deny that in today's age more than ever the chinese government has exactly the right tools and promulgation techniques to make sure that gets indoctrinated everywhere!
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 21:14 (twelve years ago) link
i guess i'd just argue that the average chinese people know very little about the ideological debates that really shaped china as it looks like right now, post 79. the 5000 years of grand chinese history conception has very, very little to do with what actually guides the nation. even if folky nationalism and qinshihuang are important myths. major disconnection between 老百姓 conception of china and elite level ideology. i guess similar to american grassroots rightwing people being disconnected with actual nuts and bolts ruling neocon ideology. i don't know if i phrased that in a way that makes sense to anyone but me.
― dylannn, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:02 (twelve years ago) link
yeah. thinking back I think it's probably enough to acknowledge that there is going to be a pretty big cultural gap between china and the_west, and it doesn't really matter what the cause of that gap is, and it's tough to talk about these subjects without accusations of essentialism. or to look to china's conception of itself might be turning over the wrong stone.
― dayo, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 00:00 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.danwei.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/9-11-on-China-e1315963034827.jpg
― dylannn, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 06:34 (twelve years ago) link
on 9/11 of course
― dylannn, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 06:35 (twelve years ago) link
that guy otm
― dayo, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 10:12 (twelve years ago) link
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/09/13/china-cracks-down-on-gutter-oil-a-substance-even-worse-than-its-name/
"China consumes about 22.5 million tons of cooking oil annually, and as much as one out of every ten restaurant meals has been cooked in waste oil(..)"
― Sébastien, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 13:52 (twelve years ago) link
that's why chinese food tastes better in china
― dayo, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 16:58 (twelve years ago) link
Source: South China Morning Post (9/14/11):http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=bfd67c5fe7662310VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=China&s=News Brainwashing the only option, says writerAgence France-Presse in New York Banned Chinese writer Liao Yiwu, speaking in the United States for thefirst time since fleeing his country, said on Tuesday his only crime wasto resist "brainwashing". Liao, who spent four years behind bars for writing the poem "Massacre"about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, said personal freedom in Chinais only granted to those who surrender their spiritual freedom. "In China, the biggest problem is brainwashing. If you don¹t have yourmemory, or your conscience, everything is possible but you have to forgetabout your personal stories," Liao told an event of PEN, a group ofauthors active on human rights, at New York¹s New School. Liao said he would have "lived a very good life in China" if he hadstopped trying to think independently. The author of the newly released God is Red: The Secret Story of HowChristianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China said he is not apolitical activist, but was persecuted simply for telling the stories ofordinary people. In his earlier book, The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China From theBottom Up, he recounted tales of people on the margins of the economicsuperpower¹s deeply repressed society. "I first started wanting to tell stories when I was in prisons. I waslocked up with unique people," he said, including traffickers, murderersand thieves. "Gradually my brain was turning into a tape recorder." "When I was first locked up I was a political prisoner. I didn¹t think Ihad anything in common," he said, speaking through a translator. "I felt like my brain was exploding. I couldn¹t even take their storiesany more. But it was like the only path for them: they wanted to telltheir stories to me and they wanted to tell me before they were executed." "All the people I have interviewed, they have no interest in politics, butthey want the freedom to express themselves." In his new book, God is Red, Liao explores the way that rural Chinese defyofficial restrictions to follow Christianity. Liao said that while he is not a Christian, he admires their determinationand faith. Like other forms of self expression, all religions are permitted on onecondition: "First you have to believe in the Communist Party". "If you are willing to pursue your freedom, seek out your freedom, thenyou could be in trouble," he said. Liao, who also played traditional Chinese instruments at the PEN gatheringand gave an intense recitation of "Massacre," is renowned for hisstraightforward approach to his subjects, his quiet humour and courage. Novelist Salman Rushdie introduced the Chinese writer on stage as one of"the few people who are the real writers" around the world. Liao did not discuss details of his departure from China earlier thisyear, when he walked into Vietnam before making his way to Germany. However, his more personal stories are becoming known through a prisonmemoir, which has sold briskly in Germany, but has yet to be translatedinto English. He told the audience on Tuesday that he was known to other prisoners as"the big lunatic" for his defiant gestures. When a thief on death row asked him to organise for him "the same memorialservice as accorded to a senior Chinese leader, Liao obliged, writing aeulogy that got him sent into solitary confinement as a punishment for 23days. "That¹s why they called me the lunatic." During his three days in New York, Liao said he had been stunned to find ahuge immigrant Chinese community in Flushing, an area of Queens. "I¹venever seen so many Chinese," he said to laughter, before describing how heran into "swindlers" trying to sell fake phones. "It feels like that¹s going to be China without communism," he said tomore laughter. China this year launched one of its biggest crackdown on dissent in yearsin response to a wave of pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East. Acclaimed artist Ai Weiwei was detained for nearly three months and lastyear¹s Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, a writer and activist who hasbeen active in the Independent Chinese PEN Center, remains in prison. Liao was barred from attending literary festivals in New York and Sydneyearlier this year prior to his self-exile.
― dylannn, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 20:02 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/world/asia/china-sentences-four-uighurs-to-death-over-unrest.html?_r=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/world/asia/axe-wielding-farmer-goes-on-killing-spree-in-central-china.html
par for the course. thank god for china's strict ban on guns.
― dayo, Thursday, 15 September 2011 17:32 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4520
the attitude expressed by the farmers here is so typical. ugh
― dayo, Friday, 16 September 2011 01:44 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/asia/kinmen-seeks-to-evolve-as-china-and-taiwan-improve-ties.html?pagewanted=all
I had no idea that kinmen even existed! :O
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:05 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/16/world/asia/0917taiwan.html
lol how the hell is this still in Taiwan?
― Chapman Pincher Overdrive (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:06 (twelve years ago) link
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/09/16/world/asia/0917taiwan/0917taiwan-popup.jpg
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:08 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i tried to post the map and failed. it wd seem kinda difficult to defend no matter how many mines u laid down
― Chapman Pincher Overdrive (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:08 (twelve years ago) link
100000 people live on that little thing!
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:09 (twelve years ago) link
I was v surprised to find out that this took place in the US
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/nyregion/couple-accused-of-stealing-food-money-from-red-apple-preschools.html
given that it seems every 3rd day a story comes out of china about some preschool principal feeding a class of 100 with 6 apples and pocketing the rest of the money
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:10 (twelve years ago) link
a lesser nation might see a conflict of interest in the directors of a chain of private preschools running a nonprofit school
― Chapman Pincher Overdrive (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:12 (twelve years ago) link
smdh @ this as well
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/when-a-woman-dares-to-say-he-hit-me-in-china-adam-minter.html
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:15 (twelve years ago) link
In a Sept. 13 interview with China Daily, he said, "I hit her sometimes but I never thought she would make it public since it's not Chinese tradition to expose family conflicts to outsiders.”
fucking animal
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:17 (twelve years ago) link
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/asia/2011/09/09/ordos-boom-town-ghost-town
lol @ this
We ended up spinning around and around city blocks, searching for a store selling water. Eventually we found some - but not without the feeling we had gone on a treasure hunt. There is no major supermarket in Ordos, because not enough people live in the city.This just seems nuts. I am neither an economist nor a dedicated, full-time financial reporter; but I do know Ordos is not habitable. The numbers might look good, but from a qualitative standpoint, there is a problem if you cannot buy bottled water around the corner. Something is just terribly wrong with this situation.
This just seems nuts. I am neither an economist nor a dedicated, full-time financial reporter; but I do know Ordos is not habitable. The numbers might look good, but from a qualitative standpoint, there is a problem if you cannot buy bottled water around the corner. Something is just terribly wrong with this situation.
for reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h7V3Twb-Qk
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 12:32 (twelve years ago) link
ladies and gentlemen, I give you...
http://i.imgur.com/PaZcs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Wikuo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VVG2Q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jVuPx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6IfIN.jpg
...the new Harbin Pharmaceuticals Plant
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 13:00 (twelve years ago) link
not *so* infuriating when you realize that apple is doing the equiv
http://cdn.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1313264850-renderings-2-528x352.jpg
then again apple is the richest company in the world
― partistan (dayo), Saturday, 17 September 2011 13:01 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=3791
lijia zhang responding to ai weiwei's beijing, plugging book
― dylannn, Sunday, 18 September 2011 08:30 (twelve years ago) link
http://books.google.com/books/about/Streetlife_China.html?id=mN8Fn1w5VgwC
somehow reminded of this. i've liked this reader since i came across it. it halflooks like maximumrocknroll and half like a proper reader. good introduction and some of best writing on STREET LIFE in china. good stuff. check your local library.
― dylannn, Sunday, 18 September 2011 08:33 (twelve years ago) link
haha, well she wasn't thrown into solitary confinement for 3 months! xp
I am picking this up from the library today
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520077966
gonna look for that streetlife book too
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Sunday, 18 September 2011 11:11 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.ted.com/talks/yasheng_huang.html
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Sunday, 18 September 2011 11:47 (twelve years ago) link
some older stuff
http://www.slate.com/id/2254176/
Even lesser disputes can lead to violence. My friend Wan Jia, a railway engineer, recently clashed with the workmen he hired to renovate his apartment. The contractor demanded an extra $1,000, and when Wan Jia refused to pay, he sent hired thugs to Wan Jia's office to intimidate him and follow him around. Wan Jia finally called the police.But the police didn't care to get involved. They brought Wan Jia and the crew of thugs to the police station and left them alone in a room. "They said, 'It's your problem; deal with it yourself,' " Wan Jia told me. "As long as no one gets hurt too bad, the police don't care."With no one to rely on but himself, Wan Jia called his wife and told a white lie about needing to take a last-minute business trip. He dug his heels in and stayed in the room for the next 26 hours. His opponents worked in shifts; at one point, Wan Jia found himself facing off against 10 men. But in the end, the contractor's general manager agreed to negotiate a new price—and Wan Jia was able to go home.
But the police didn't care to get involved. They brought Wan Jia and the crew of thugs to the police station and left them alone in a room. "They said, 'It's your problem; deal with it yourself,' " Wan Jia told me. "As long as no one gets hurt too bad, the police don't care."
With no one to rely on but himself, Wan Jia called his wife and told a white lie about needing to take a last-minute business trip. He dug his heels in and stayed in the room for the next 26 hours. His opponents worked in shifts; at one point, Wan Jia found himself facing off against 10 men. But in the end, the contractor's general manager agreed to negotiate a new price—and Wan Jia was able to go home.
fucking crazy
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Monday, 19 September 2011 01:16 (twelve years ago) link
has anyone read tom scocca's book "beijing welcomes you"? im intrigued by it cuz i love scocca's writing but i dont know anything about china/beijing
― max, Monday, 19 September 2011 01:17 (twelve years ago) link
I don't know who that is but my friend recommended this book
http://site.whenabillionchinesejump.com/
dunno what he's like as a writer but it's supposedly super interesting from an environmental pov (for example, under a 'green GDP' calc China's GDP is actually decreasing per year)
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Monday, 19 September 2011 01:20 (twelve years ago) link
reading an excerpt on slate and it seems pretty good
obv if you have no direct experience with a country you are going to be constrained to the lens of the person who's writing, could be good or bad
For some reason I couldn't imagine, deep deposits of broken eggshells filled the hollows in the dirt, along with broken bricks and burnt-out fuel cakes of pressed coal.
this is otm though, for some reason every refuse heap in china has a layer of broken brown eggshells on top, dunno why
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Monday, 19 September 2011 01:25 (twelve years ago) link
I wonder if there are still de Tocqueville style "my first experience of America" books being published abroad
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Monday, 19 September 2011 01:27 (twelve years ago) link
― max, Sunday, September 18, 2011 9:17 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
yeah been wondering too
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 11:50 (twelve years ago) link
you guys should read it, tell me what you think
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:00 (twelve years ago) link
most travel writing is just "man this place is really weird...and cool...and scary!" tho
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:05 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― max, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:06 (twelve years ago) link
yeah but ~how much can you ever really know about someone else~
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:11 (twelve years ago) link
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'
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:15 (twelve years ago) link
I tend to treat all nonfiction as creative though so don't mind me
arent we all outsiders tho think abt it
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:18 (twelve years ago) link
~kant~
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:22 (twelve years ago) link
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, September 20, 2011 8:00 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
sry, kant
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:23 (twelve years ago) link
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
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:26 (twelve years ago) link
by the same logic its in a way easier to see things abt foreign cultures
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:30 (twelve years ago) link
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
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:32 (twelve years ago) link
the world is a refuse heap
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 12:36 (twelve years ago) link
Subject: reporter killed after cooking oil story*********************************************************** Source: South China Morning Post (9/20/11):http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=4666d08d4f582310VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD Reporter killed after 'gutter' cooking oil storyAgence France-Presse in Beijing A journalist who had been following a scandal involving the sale ofcooking oil made from leftovers taken from gutters has been stabbed todeath, police and state media said on Tuesday. Li Xiang, 30, a reporter with Luoyang Television Station in the centralprovince of Henan, was knifed more than 10 times early on Monday as hereturned home from a karaoke session with friends, the Zhengzhou EveningNews reported. The laptop computer Li had been carrying was missing and police weretreating 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" butdeclined 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 followingthe latest food scandal to hit the mainland, a "gutter" cooking oil scamthat led to the arrests of 32 people caught selling the carcinogenicproduct. Police in Henan and the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Shandong havefound more than 100 tonnes of the recycled oil illegally made fromleftovers taken from gutters, the Ministry of Public Security said in astatement. The last post on Li¹s micro-blog on September 15 said web users "hadcomplained that Luanchuan county (in Henan province) has densmanufacturing gutter cooking oil, but the food safety commission repliedthat they didn¹t find any". Bloggers said they suspected Li¹s death was related to his previousreports on the "gutter" cooking oil cases. "Luoyang Television Station reporter Li Xiang got stabbed to death, Isuspect it¹s related to his reports on Œgutter¹ cooking oil," a web usersaid on Sina¹s popular social networking site Weibo. "Li Xiang¹s stabbing death is the unfortunate outcome of investigating thegutter cooking oil cases," another user said.
― dylannn, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 19:31 (twelve years ago) link
jesus
I should get a mod to rename this thread to "rolling depressing china thread 2011"
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 23:06 (twelve years ago) link