About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

Happy Labor Day!

I remember I stayed at home (Shanghai) for 7 days watching all the Desperate Housewives episodes last year. LOL. It is not that I don’t want to explore our beautiful western provinces - Yunnan (云南), Sichuan(四川), Tibet (西藏) and Qinghai (青海), I was afraid that the overwhelming crowds would ruin the beautiful natural scenery. Year 2008 is the first year that the eight-year-old “7-day-Golden-Week” is cut to 3 days. Still, I can’t go out to explore the far-away Wild Wild West. What’s worst, my friend from Suzhou told me that a nice hotel in Suzhou is very difficult to book (= more expensive) in the coming few days. So, I guess I will have to stay at home to watch LOST this time (like other Chinese fans of US TV shows).

According to a news report from Qianglong(千龙网), tour bookings are only 50% of what they were in year 2007, especially long distance tours to more remote destinations, such as Hainan (海南) and Lijiang Yunnan (丽江，云南). Self-driving packages are most popular.

So, if you are coming to China, I suggest you schedule your trip to avoid our public holidays. My take is: avoid visiting big cities in 3-day long weekends, and avoid the remote destinations during national holiday and Chinese New Year. Check out the calendar below and bookmark it.

In Summary:

1. We have 11 days public holidays, and minimal 5 days paid leave according to Labor Contract Law.
2. The government wants us to take advantage of the public holidays to drive travel industry, so a holiday usually make a 3-day long weekend. For example, we will have to work in the coming Sunday (May 4) because we are off on Friday (May 2).
3. So, What are these holidays?

• Jan. 1 : New Year Day (元旦)
• Chinese Calendar Jan. 1: Chinese New Year (春节)
• April. 5: Qingming (清明). People usually go to ceremonies to “sweep the tomb” (lit 扫墓) of their ancestors. The act of clean-up the tomb, and bringing some flowers, food and wine to the tomb is to show respect and memory to our passed family members. So you don’t need to say “happy holiday” to your Chinese friends on Qingming.
• May. 1: International Labor’s Day (劳动节). I guess it is a public holiday in all “communist” countries (though it originated from a labor dispute in the United States).
• Chinese Calendar May. 5: Duanwu (端午). It is a day to memorize one of our ancient patriot Quyuan (屈原). People eat a kind of food called zongzi 粽子(sticky rice “cake” wrapped with leaf). That day, dragon boat races are also held.
• Chinese Calendar Aug. 15: Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节). A festival to appreciate the most rounded moon in a year and eat moon cakes.
• Oct. 1: National Day (国庆节). The day Chairman Mao announced that People’s Republic of China was founded in front of Tiananmen Square in 1949.

Sometime in early 2007, some wise guy on ShanghaiExpat.com felt expat entrepreneurs in Shanghai could really use a community and network to support each other’s endeavors. He offered to set up some events and invited those interested to join his e-mail list, promising to notify everyone of when and where those events would eventually take place. I signed up and not long after, I began receiving e-mails with digital fliers from some organization eventually known as NextStep Shanghai.

I attended my first NextStep entrepreneur mixer over three months ago, when it was held at Volar on January 15th. Keen to network with fellow entrepreneurs to pick each other’s minds and swap business cards (you know, to feel important), I even dragged my business partner (who dragged his friend) to come along.

Unfortunately, we ultimately left feeling rather disappointed.

To be sure, there was a reasonable crowd, but for an “entrepreneur” mixer, it was sorely lacking in…well, “entrepreneurs.” Of course, like many professional mixers everywhere, there’s a high probability of meeting a lot of sales reps for various companies hoping to find customers, connections, or (mostly business-to-business sales) opportunities. You also run into a lot of individuals trying to network their way to some important person at some big-name company in hopes of landing a job that’ll look good on their resume. As anyone with experience with such professional events would know, these are often expected. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that such an environment isn’t exactly helpful for actual or aspiring entrepreneurs looking to discuss new business ideas or solutions to new business problems and difficulties. As such, I had a nice drink or so, and met a few decent people, but didn’t consider the event having been worth my time.

Not long after, Elliott asked me to guest-blog here at CNReviews.com. As I sat down to detail my experience, I realized it wasn’t quite fair to judge NextStep’s entire concept and execution on the basis of a single event’s results. Setting my notes aside as a draft, I resolved to give NextStep another chance by attending another event.

That draft sat untouched for months.

What can I say? I’m a busy guy. It wasn’t until April 15th that I finally made my way, through heavy rains, to another event. This time, it was held in The Collection at Shanghai’s ever-lovely Xintiandi.

I’m glad I went.

(more…)

Christine Lu (of China Business Network) compiled a great list of the (primarily English-language) China Twitterati on Twitter. If you’re on Twitter and am interested in China, go follow the Twitterati on the ChinaList!

Over the weekend, Louis Gray posted on the Twitter Noise Ratio — defined as the ratio of Updates to Followers — to contrast the “Listeners” (low Noise Ratio) from the “Megaphones” (high Noise Ratio). Naturally there was a bit of controversy about this measure! But it inspired me to measure up the ChinaList and see what I could find.

So what about the China Twitterati? Is this Twitter With Chinese Characteristics?

Here’s what I found about the ChinaList.

• The Super Twitterati. As measured by either Updates, Followers, or both, there are a few Super Twitter users: @thecarol, @isaac, @christinelu, @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman! Wow. I am not worthy.
• In General, there is a wide variation of usage of Twitter among the ChinaList. Clearly there is no one best way to use Twitter. It is entirely between you, yourself, and your Followers!
• The Top Updaters. Some but not all of these Super Twitterati are among the prolific Top Updaters among the China Twitterati. The top 10 are @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman, @christinelu, @DavidFeng, @isaac, @marcvanderchijs, @dimi3, @ericgonzalez, and @shanghaiist.
• The Top “Megaphones” among us (to use Louis’ controversial measure of Updates per Followers) are: @kevinkoo, @dimi3, @DavidFeng, @flypig, @siumuimui, @webleon, @bbluesman, @shanghaiist, @expatacular, and @Guerel. This group has a ratio of 15.6 Updates per Follower, vs. the median of 3.2 Updates per Follower! This is nearly five times the median! As my co-blogger DavidFeng says to his new Followers, “Get ready for your arrival!”
• The “Listeners” among us are: @kriadam, @ionchina, @djsircharles, @ThomasCrampton, @nicolasz, @ChinaTechToday, @chinapolarbear @JakeNewby, @anguslau, @Agraylin, @Neocha
• The “Moderates”, who have a Noise Ratio of near the median of 3.2 Updates/Follower include: @thehumanaught, @dedlam, @papajohn, @ajschokora, @jputman. @pandapassport, @msittig, @samflemming, @PhilipJohnson8, @ChinaMatt

The rest of this post has 2 cool charts and 4 leaderboards, including the entire ChinaList ranked by Followers at the end.

Chart 1: Updates vs. Followers - The Super China Twitterati of the ChinaList

This chart plots each member of the ChinaList with total Updates on the Y axis and total Followers on the X axis. All data is of 4/27/2008. This chart shows the emergence of Six Super Twitter users: @thecarol, @isaac, @christinelu, @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman.

What’s the yellow shaded area? The majority of the 92 ChinaList Twitterati are in the shaded yellow area and I’ve created a separate chart for that area.

This data that produced this graph can be critiqued as not considering the length of time that people have been on Twitter. So for example, @thecarol may have joined 2 months ago and may be tweeting more rapidly than @flypig but he may have been on Twitter for a much longer time. What would be more interesting would be to graph Updates/Month vs. Follower Growth/Month. But the data are not available to do this.

Chart 2: Updates vs. Followers - The Rest of Us China Twitterati (the shaded yellow section in the above chart).

Because the Super Twitterati are such outliers, I expanded the chart to include only the mainstream China Twitterati.

Some of the more prolific Twitterati include @DavidFeng, @Marcvanderchijs, @shanghaiist, @dimi3, @ericgonzalez, @sioksiok, @zjjtrans, @kevinkoo, @shanghaiist, and @FonsTuinstra.

Leaderboard 1: Top 10 with Most Followers

He who ends up with the most followers does not win!

Most people might think “most followers” is the goal of Twitter, but Robert Scoble convincingly argues that its not about how many followers you have, but how many people you follow. That’s why he is following 21,000 people and tweets roll about 1 tweet/second on his GTalk screen! In fact, some of us (here, here, and here) wonder if he is a Cylon. If you worried about not having enough followers, please read his post and focus on following the right people, not about trying to win a popularity contest. Especially if you’re a Cylon.

In my own experience, I feel Followers is a function of the time that you have been on Twitter and how much you interact with other people who happen to have lots of Followers. I’m sure @ChristineLu retweeting my tweets and posts have resulted in a ton of new Followers for me, for example. Thanks Christine!

Leaderboard 2: Top 10 with Most Updates

Is there Life outside of Twitter? Ask these prolific Tweeters. Again, this metric is not entirely meaningful because it doesn’t capture the rate of increase of tweets. Either these folks have been on Twitter for a long time, OR they are prolific updaters, so be forewarned if you follow them! My dirty non-harmonious secret: I have actually unfollowed 1 of these people because they are too “noisy” for me, because they use TwitterFeed to feed all of their blog posts on Twitter! (But I follow the rest!)

Leaderboard 3: Top 10 Updates/Follower (aka Twitter Noise! according to LouisGray)

There is a lot of criticism of the Twitter Noise Ratio measure on FriendFeed and at Louis Gray’s post. Updates include the @ messages that you might send to a specific Follower or Twitterer. So as you get into more conversations, Louis’ measure would condemn you as “noisy!” Stowe Boyd has a different measure called Conversation Index that may be better but is not possible to measure easily. This Conversational Index is expressed like this:

Boyd’s Twitterized Conversational Index = (number of replies made by followers / number of tweets)

This is similar to measuring the number comments a blogger gets on a post. The more comments, the more reader engagement. Boyd is suggesting that the more @replies, the more your Followers are engaged and interested by your Tweets.

Also, I suggested that “Total Updates/Month” or “General Updates/Month” might be a better measure, but there are no historical Twitter stats to my knowledge.

What Twitter Metrics Matter? What’s interesting about how you or your fellow China Twitterati use Twitter? What might you change about how you use Twitter?

Karl Marx, in his famous Theses on Feuerbach, said, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.” I hope that this interpretation of the world will allow you to change it in your small way. On Twitter.

Finally, here is the entire list ordered by Followers:

Leaderboard 4: Entire China Twitterati List on ChinaList, sorted by Followers

Here is the Source Spreadsheet for ChinaList Twitterati 20080427 with all this data in case you are interested in it. Use it under Creative Commons license, by-sa-nc 3.0 with attribution to Elliott Ng, CNReviews.com.

UPDATE 4/28:  From the bully pulpit of Ogilvy Digital Watch, Kaiser Kuo wrote an excellent post discussing the trend of blogging about Twitter as dangerous self-referential narcissism and the risks of “excitable dorkitude,”:

Each to his own, of course. But am I wrong in thinking that there’s something not quite healthy and weirdly solipsistic about this? Mind you, I do find Twitter useful, as I made clear in a post of mine last week - a post which, as if to prove the point it made, rode a wave of Twitter-distribution to become one of my most widely-read posts to date. But if we all start looking like a bunch of excitable dorks (which many clearly are) we’ll scare away people who actually might make truly useful contributions - links to great stories, life hacks, great recommendations on apps or software or books or eats, real insights into the things that matter: things predicated on actually having a life.

Guilty as charged.  Kaiser earlier post about the myriad uses of Twitter notwithstanding, I concur with his latest view that indeed there is life outside of Twitter.

First of all, excuse the gap — as in the gap, day-wise. Thursday evening looked like terminal illness for yours truly after a massive day’s all-in-ones: guiding people around the Planning Exhibition Hall, rectifying the Chinglish, hosting radio shows and translating files.

Onwards. Beijing is redoing quite a bit of those traffic signs. Yet in all of this sign mania, there’s a gap — between well-done signs and signs that looked like people were rushing through them. These signs are either hunong (糊弄) — as in badly done — or zixi (仔细) — as in Swiss-ish precisionism.

Why am I going into Chinese road signs for a start? Well, for a start (hate to use the same words time and again, but oh well), I’ve bumped into enough “things” (so to speak) in and around China (and in the wider world outside the PRC, too) that looked like they were — well, done with nary a second thought. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve spotted true masterpieces that are more than deserving of coverage on the cover page (pardon the pun) of your newsmagazine — they’re that good.

Take a look, for example, at your average science book. Mom and dad left quite a bit of their science books with me at my big house in the eastern suburbs, and as a result, I’ve gotten around to browsing through them. The bit I love is how they describe things — as in things as “nice” “harmonious” as the different between cirrus and nimbus clouds — as well as less “harmonious” topics such as how nuclear bombs are being made. They describe it all in “people language” — the average guy in the street is able to pick the book up, read through it, and make sense of the whole thing. Books written in the Mao era are very much zixi things — they’re a pleasure to read because the lady or gent who wrote the book gave a something about the quality of the book. Nice pics make it like that icing on the cake.

Contrast that with hunong, which is — of course — something that looks like someone made in a hurry. Time is money, by the way (I think Marx said that first? Don’t quote me on that…), so some of us folks in China finish something that obviously looks that bit more “half-baked”. Whether that be traffic signs or Chinglish-laden announcement signs, it’s more than obvious: somebody wanted to do this quick. Maybe to get paid — quick.

My trips today through Beijing’s Subway system (sorry, I don’t have a second hobby for the moment) saw me take two snaps of the subway system. One hunong as heck and one zixi — oh heavens, platform art. I love that.

Let’s do the hunong bit. Somebody wanted to remove those signs up above the platforms. Unfortunately, the third rail’s only out of action from midnight till about 5 AM at the “latest” (”earliest” for the rest of us), so the only time some could afford to pull this stunt off (the stunt of removing signage located in the track area without risking electrocution) would be during these five hours. Sadder still, someone decided to take only bits and pieces of the signage off. Did the guy do this between his late night breaks with — we’re guessing here — Chinese chess and mantou (bread)? The result –

– kinda showed him pulling off a multitasking stunt poorly: only half the signage got removed, and that — in a very “half and half” manner. Not good.

One station up on Line 2, though, and we see those fantastic murals or wall art / platform art. Someone obviously took his or her time, did the artwork really well, and took pride in his or her work when the whole thing was assembled and complete.

In particular to Swiss people, I’d say, we are big fans of zixi people. We have plenty of those people on the ground here in Beijing. Unfortunately, we also seem to have a steady supply of hunongers.

It’s time to dump hunong and embrace zixi. China’s rising, and we want to see perfection rise as well.

Baidu Data Research Center (百度数据研究中心) released a Online Travel Report 2007 on April. 10, 2008. It provides some very interesting data about online travel industry in China. [Note: all data are for year 2007 if not specified; all Baidu data are collected from browser cookies in Q4 of 2007 Q4.]

1. Market Size

• Total Revenue of Travel Industry of China: 1,090 Billion RMB -> 155.7 Billion USD (data from China National Tourism Administration, 中国国家旅游局);
• Total Online Travel Booking: 2.25 Billion RMB -> 0.32 Billion USD, increased 65.4% from 2006 (data from a report by Data Center of China Internet 中国互联网调查);
• Estimated Online Travel Booking in 2008: 3.84 Biilion RMB ->0.55 Billion USD (中国互联网调查).

2. Travel Theme/Category

The categories are analyzed from the key terms. One interesting category for English speakers would be “红色旅游“ (ranked at #2 ) which literally means “Red Tourism”. People usually visit China Anti-Japan/ Liberation War (1920s-40s) and Chinese Communist Party development related historical places in a Red Tour.

3.Top 10 Most Searched Information Categories

I wasn’t surprised to that “Air Ticket” is the most WANTED key terms in travel related searches, but a little surprised to see only 3.57% terms are about “lodging/accommodation”. This is very different from the United States market where “hotels” is a hot term. A large percentage of people are searching for “itinerary” (旅游路线) which I will understand as “deciding where to go”.

4. Top 10 Travel Booking Sites

Top 3 players are: Ctrip, Elong and MangoCity.

5. Top 10 Travel Information Sites

I have personally used Go2EU (穷游网) and knew it was very hot, but I didn’t expect it to be Number 1. Go2EU’s Chinese name can be understood as “Travel though you are poor” or “How to travel even if you don’t have much $$$.” It is a portal and community for budget/independent outbound travelers. All the information (in Chinese) focuses on overseas travel: from how to get a visa, where to buy cheap ticket, to tips on when and where to take great pictures. I am a little surprised to see only Travel Channel of Sohu on # 10 but no other major portals.

6:Top 10 Domestic Travel Destinations for Shanghai Residents (most searched)

The top 10 destinations are: Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Huangshan, Wuxi, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Chengdu. Except of Huangshan (黄山) which is a natural park, all others are cities. I haven’t been to 2 of them.

7. Top 10 Oversea Travel Destinations for Shanghai & Beijing Residents (most searched)

Shanghai: Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Bali, Sin-Ma-Thai, North Korea, France

Beijing: North Korea, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, France, Vietnam, The United States, Finland and Japan.

An interesting finding: North Korea is a in the “Top 10″ lists of both cities. Very funny! I can’t believe people are actually travel to North Korea, or maybe just it is just a MOST Interested country that people search for general purpose rather than travel. How do you think? I bet the United States will be in the list of 2008 for Shanghai residents.

There are some other interesting charts in this 44-page report, such as top 10 most searched hotel brands, airlines, travel agents, cities. It can be easily download here.

UPDATE from Elliott:

CNReviews.com Trivia Question: On Twitter, I tweeted the trivia question: “When asked if the French Revolution was successful, which Chinese statesman said “it is too early to tell?” JPostman of SocializedPR answered the question correctly–Zhou Enlai. The lucky winner gets a link to his blog at SocializedPR! Now I have to reread Alexis de Tocqueville’s Old Regime and the French Revolution to contrast it with Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (also on Amazon)to even be able to understand what Zhou Enlai was thinking when he said this. Thanks JPostman!

1kg More (多背一公斤）was four years old on April 18, 2008.

Happy Birthday, 1kg More! And congratulations on the great progress in the past year, Andrew!

I chatted with 1kg More founder/blogger/travel enthusiast Andrew Yu (my previous interview with Andrew is here) a few days ago and got the latest updates on 1kg More:

1. 1kg More is in Shanghai taxis: If you are taking any taxi that is running Touch Media, who recently announced to receive RBM 1000 million VC funding on Mar. 28, 2008, advertising, you will see 1kg on the screen. As I know, Touch Media is currently running in Qiang Sheng Taxi (强生出租车, the brown/deep yellow color cab).

2. 1kg More has a new website: With this new version, a user now can:

• Search schools that need help by typing in the destination name .(I gave a try and found 10 schools in Guilin (桂林) area, and 26 schools in Lijiang Yuman (云南丽江) area, very nice!)
• Upload the school information online. 1kg volunteers will then contact the school to make sure the information are accurate.
• Share photos with other members.
• Join any other 1kg activities.

Volunteer Suave Su is using various open-sourced technologies to build the website, and the 1kg.org site is open to any volunteers to contribute. You can email Suave (suave.su at gmail.com) if you want to help. It is not a rocket-science project, but I am very impressed by what Suave has done by himself.

3. 1kg More has more schools: In the past 3 months in 2008, there are 120+ added into the search-able database (the number for the year 2007 is 98).

4. 1kg More is now a registered entity: As a grassroots NGO in China, Andrew told me it is impossible for 1kg More to get a non-profit organization registration. And the only way to have a legitimated identity is to register 1kg as a commercial entity. Andrew and I have chatted about this before, and the reality is that there is hardly a way for a grassroots NGO to get an official recognition from the government at present due to a serial complicated concerns. I am looking forward to 1kg More’s Chinese characterized NGO model.

Read 1kg More annual summary from Andrew Yu in Chinese here.

Everything seems cool when it starts to rain. But when it rains nonstop for 24 hours, things get a bit different.

Here’s a look at our nation’s capital in rain. It sure is refreshing, but remember this has gone a bit too far. Beijing was soaked in rain for 24 hours straight (and counting), with rainstorm-level downpours in the suburbs away from the city center.

The rain seemed pretty refreshing, indeed, but it also wrecked havoc for the traffic. Travel delays were common as taxis, full of people in them, were all the rage. You had to get moving without being soaked, and being on four motorized wheels was the only way out. Traffic jams, once again, were not out of the ordinary.

The Beijing Subway, too, was hit, although this time, it wasn’t a case of soaked-in trouble; nope, it was more a technical glitch. Line 2’s new control center was a bit too new (they shifted control of the inner loop line to a new centralized facility), so tech glitches held up clockwise traffic on Line 2. It, in fact, started right when yours truly hopped into Hepingmen subway station, taking a train further west (clockwise) to Xuanwumen and points beyond. (We’re talking about the part of Beijing that’s just south of Chang’an Avenue!)

11:04. The train rolled in Hepingmen station. The doors opened — and stayed open. About 4 to 5 minutes later, a counterclockwise train rolled in. Doors opened. Three sharp beeps. Doors closed. Train drives off. Our train: “mouth” (door) still wide open.

It took about another 4 to 5 minutes for the second counterclockwise train to roll in. This time, I made up my mind. I switched on over immediately to the train going the wrong way around — changing, in the process, my plans for lunch so that I’d do pizza instead of Yoshinoya veggie rice bowls.

The chaos went on for a full 30 minutes on the clockwise part of Line 2. Thank heavens I escaped onto Line 5, where I got my pizza.

And that was the thing. When I went out of the pizza restaurant (after being stuffed chock-full of delicious pizza), the rain stopped. Out went an instant tweet. The rain stopped.

The rain. Yes, indeed. Not just “natural” rain. “Artificial” rain, too. In a city where the whole of the winter was nearly all dry, this bit of precipitation was more than welcome.

If you’ve been watching the officialspeak lately, the word 华人 (hua ren), which means — quite simply — “Chinese” — has been floating around more often than nationality-related terms, such as “PRC citizen”. Those who are joining the “Heart China” MSN movement are no longer “just” citizens of the People’s Republic — they included Chinese of foreign nationalities, which would include yours truly — a Swiss citizen of Chinese descent. The unifying factor here is more related to blood and ethnic ties than it does with what kind of passport you have.

There is this term that has been floating around for some time — it’s a term that makes folks who are Chinese by descent but of foreign nationalities feel both “at home” and at the same time “alienated”. It’s the term 外籍华人 (wai ji hua ren), or “Chinese with foreign nationalities (citizenships)”. The “at home” bit is the 华人 (huaren) bit, which means “Chinese” (quite literally). The bit of “alienation” is the 外籍 (waiji) bit, which implies that you do not have Chinese citizenship (ie legal citizenship).

Most Chinese with foreign citizenships are World-friendly. Born in an international environment, they appreciate the best of both cultures — Chinese and Western (or Chinese and plain-vanilla “foreign”). Their eyes on the World are wider than the average 5 minute “world news” bit on Chinese TV (to make an understatement). It seems, then, that the term is “good”.

Except for the fact that it has the 外籍 (waiji) part. This bit is alienating. You feel ever so close to China, yet the fact that you don’t have their citizenship is a real bummer. PRC law bans dual nationalities, so if you want to be Chinese by law, you have to stop being Swiss (or American). And Chinese passports don’t grant you visa-free access to the US, Europe or even Taiwan, so…

But what if you’re Chinese by ethnicity and have a more World-oriented outlook? Here’s where I drop in a new term, 国际华人 (guoji huaren), which simply means “international Chinese”. This term is a good one, because it shows that the Chinese are World-oriented as in they care about what happens beyond their national frontiers. In this day and age, there’s the need to know what’s going on in Beijing, Bangkok and Berlin.

The 国际华人 (guoji huaren) bit also reflects well on the Chinese as a whole, as it shows that the Chinese are more “international” (the 国际 (guoji) bit stands out really well) and hence gives you this feeling that they’re more active on the World stage. It showcases their might and the fact that they’re ready to embrace the World. They can talk with folks around the planet. They can communicate with folks around the World. And yes, you can use this term regardless of nationality, as long as you have Chinese blood or are Chinese by ethnicity, and you’ve lived around the World. It includes both 华侨 (hua qiao; overseas Chinese) and the 外籍华人 (Chinese with foreign nationalities).

The International Chinese is part of this great family people — people, purely people at that — people who are just as equal as the guy or gal next to you. They are all individuals on the planet. They are free to, and in fact, should, mix and mingle with folks of different cultures and nationalities. If you’ve heard of the word “World Citizen”, you can count the International Chinese in as a World Citizen. The only “bit” that they have that makes them a tad different is their heritage. Theoretically (and legally) speaking, though, they are — when all is said and done — just another human being on the surface of the Earth, when it comes right down to the fundamentals.

The International Chinese should be open to different cultures and ways of thinking, while at the same time preserving — and yes, bravely reforming (when needed) their own culture. The bits and pieces that make Chinese culture — well, Chinese culture — should be kept intact. At the same time, they should be free to use “this and that” from all other cultures. This is, after all, what’s supposed to constitute a World Citizen.

The International Chinese can be anyone: theoretically speaking, the average farmer with access to the Internet, who sells his produce to buyers overseas can be considered an “International Chinese” because he interacts with the rest of the globe. The taxi driver who reads the news every day and takes a keen interest on what happens outside the PRC is also a good candidate for an “International Chinese”. If a formula was to be formulated, it’d look something like this: Chinese by descent + frequent ties to the World = International Chinese. (But then again, this is no strict formula.) And for those who are more “domestic” (as in they’ve never travelled outside the country and have only limited knowledge of the outside World), they’ve an equal opportunity to become an International Chinese by getting to know the outside World more and more. Theoretically, every student that goes through the 9-year minimum education has the knowledge to become an International Chinese. It’s just how deeply they’re involved with the rest of the planet that distinguishes this guy from the guy sitting next to him.

I’m tossing the word 国际华人 into the lexicon while relinquishing any rights. Go ahead, use it. It’s “my bit” for the rest of us.

To many a Westerner (especially to this Swiss-Chinese), one Chinese characteristic that we may have some trouble getting over is this characteristic known as qianxu (谦虚), or the art of being humble. You can be special, knowing 10 languages, heading up 2 communities, and knowing all Beijing Subway exits off by heart — heck, you might even be the only guy in the loop who knows that the closest thing to Clapham Common station on the Tube is Zhichunli station on the up-and-coming Line 10 — but you’re supposed to keep that all to yourselves!

Or nearly, that is. Being special is OK in China. It’s the way you express it. Let’s say that yours truly started out a conversation by saying: “My name is David Feng, I’m the President of this and that user group, I know all Subway stations off by heart, I know how to say “hi” in Rhaeto-Rumansh, and when my friend from the Netherlands was talking on the phone in Dutch, I knew what she was on about.” And you’ve only begun.

In the West, you’d be considered a living miracle. In China, though, you’d have come close to — or even have already — crossed the fine line that is qianxu.

In China, the moment you’re praised, you’re instead supposed to go, “Oh, my Latin isn’t that good” or “Now you’ve made my face red!”. The following sample conversation shows how someone who knows Qianxu 101 would respond:

Chinese 1: “Let me introduce John to you, who’s from the US. John knows 5 languages, and has been President of Chamber of Commerce…”
Chinese 2: “Oh my God! You are so brilliant…”
John: “Na li na li” (哪里哪里 — litearlly meaning “where, where”)
Chinese 1: “…and is a whiz kid on the piano. He knows Mozart off by heart…”
Chinese 2: “…you are a genius!”
John: Nah, actually I’m not that good on the piano…

Our fictional John would have handled that qianxu bit very well. The “na li na li” bit, by the way, has no real meaning, but is often used to “smooth” or to “dampen” the talk and is absolutely crucial to many a conversation where you’ve got to be qianxu.

Cut to the chase, being qianxu means that you consider yourself “inferior” (although not really) even if you do happen to know, say, 10 languages. This way, you’re seen as not all that “big”, and this, in fact, makes you more approachable.

So is qianxu good or bad? In fact, qianxu is good as it kind of puts you on a “lower” or more “equal” playing field. However, another school of thought is of the opinion that qianxu is not “实事求是” (shi shi qiu shi, which comes close to meaning “realistic”) enough, and says that the western “Thank you” is actually more preferred over “na li na li”.

For yours truly, this very qianxu thing is often a stumbling stone. In 2002, he was taken to task on a Mac forum in China (which shall remain anonymous) after he was too “visible” as the President of the Beijing Macintosh User Group, where he was, in essence, “brainwashed” into being humble. (His Mac group got nowhere, in fact, until he was qianxu-ized.) Encounters in 2007, however, would see David qianxu even in front of expats.

He now manages it both ways — first by being qianxu and then falling back on the refrain “Thank you”, with the added qianxu if needed. He admits it’s still a potential tripping stone, but — he’s getting places…

Via blackandwhitecat.org, one of fellow CN Reviews blogger Kai Pan favorite blogs, we got turned onto a recent BBC World Survey (pdf)on international public opinion on world countries. Warning: this is a Kai Pan’esque mega post written by Elliott.

The seeds of polarization are already clear in this survey

Blackandwhitecat came up with an unsurprising, but somewhat depressing, conclusion:

One of the interesting things about this poll is that each country seems to have quite a rosy view of its own influence on the world, even if the world doesn’t agree. The Chinese, however, have taken this tendency to extremes - a whopping 90% positive appraisal. Either the Chinese are extraordinarily perceptive, or they are somewhat lacking in introspection….

Throughout most of the poll, when one country has a negative view of another, the feeling is mutual. So China and Japan both gave each other bad marks. An exception to this is Germany, which gave the most negative of all the European assessments. China, on the other hand, was quite positive towards Germany. It probably isn’t anymore.

I don’t think people in the U.S. really know how positive Chinese people are about their role in the world. So these differences in opinion lay the seeds for misunderstanding.

What does the US invasion of Iraq and the Tibetan crackdown have in common? Both events have polarized the views of the citizens of the country against the views of the world.

Polarization has continued, most recently through the Tibet events and the subsequent Olympic protests

• Danwei posted on Who is winning the Olympic PR War? Jeremy’s conclusion: In the West, Free Tibet organizers. In China, the Chinese government.
• Global Voices Online posted on China Fallout from the Free Tibet Protests. Conclusion: increasing polarization on the China BBS’s that don’t tolerate minority opinions especially from Han Chinese.
• FT/Harris Poll showing that China has overtaken the US as the biggest threat to stability according to Europeans.
• Mutant Palm’s translation of Fanfou tweets (Fanfou is a microblogging tool, like Twitter) that demonstrates that Chinese people are not “brainwashed” by the government but carefully considering Western sources and see them as being just biased as their own sources.
• A plaintive cry from a Chinese person on cbc forums: “My friends, what do you want from us?” (h/t China Digital Times and China Herald) Even well-educated, cosmopolitan Chinese are feeling persecuted by the world and boycotting French products.

These posts, and the data from the BBC World Survey cry out for the need for people to seek to understand first and to see the world from each others eyes.

US people take note: the world still doesn’t like the US government. In fact they like China’s government more.

Views of China’s Influence by country

Views of U.S. influence by country

Which country has a more positive influence in the world, U.S. or China?

• Overall: China. 47% for China vs. 35% for U.S. (excluding subject country)
• Latin America: China. 45% for China vs 32% for U.S.
• Europe: China. 39% for China vs 31% for U.S.
• Middle East: China. 63% for China vs. 34% for U.S.
• Africa: United States. 66% for China, 70% for U.S.
• Asia (ex-China): China again. 40% for China vs 39% for U.S.

Advantage: China.

In fact, only 9 of 23 countries rated the U.S. higher than China: Portugal, Italy, Israel (just barely), Kenya, Ghana, Phillipines, South Korea, Indonesia, and Japan.

Caveat: Data was collected in December 2007 before the recent March Tibet events and the torch run. Things may have changed.

The only good news: things used to be worse for the US. The BBC looked at historical results and concluded that the “World views US ‘more positively’” than before.

So what should we do about this?

Listen first. Then understand. Then discuss. Then debate. Then convince. Only then will you gain the long-standing respect of your fellow world citizens.

UPDATE 4/19:  Lots of continuing examples of how extreme nationalism, amplified by the Web, is creating real cost to be a moderate.  Rick Martin at PandaPassport highlights Duke University Grace Wang’s actions to bridge the gap between pro-Tibet and  pro-China demonstrators, and also Jin Jing statements requesting moderation from Netizens, and the violent response from Netizens that turned a heroine into a traitor in less than a day as reported by Liang Fafu and translated by China Digital Times (h/t to PandaPassport):

Below is a news item:

2008-04-16 14:24:00 Source: Xinmin.cn. Netizen Comments: 480. Summary: Olympic torch bearer Jin Jing has publicly said she hopes netizens will be prudent in handling calls to boycott Carrefour as the first victims of such a boycott are likely to be the many Chinese who work for Carrefour.

Below is some of the commentary from netizens:

Netizen from Jinan, Shandong: “Jin Jing is bullshit! Speaking on behalf of Carrefour. I think she’s a traitor.”

Netizen from Beijing: “Torch bearer Jin Jing, I earnestly request you to shut your mouth. You’ve done your duty already. Don’t go around making irresponsible remarks. First she’s missing a leg, now she’s missing a brain.”

If an Olympic torchbearer, selected for her excellence in her sport to represent the Chinese people, and who happens to be handicapped, can be attacked with this degree of hatred from Chinese netizens, it means that anyone who shows moderation can face the wrath of extremist Netizens.

On the other site, I was disturbed by the TechCrunch article about Chinese Internet Users Say “Enough” to International Bullying to write a 450+ word rant in defense of what I thought were relatively level-headed commenters who were pro-(L) China against what I thought was shameful anti-(L) China commenters who appeared to be primarily American (or at least Western).  Frankly, my homeboys made me ashamed.  Now, I’m seeing a side of Chinese nationalism that frankly makes me concerned about where things are going.